Moscow, September 10, 2009--Interfax has turned 20! These 20 years are the same that make up the history of modern Russia. In this very period, radical changes have occurred in the country's system of government, its politics, economy, culture, and in people's everyday lives.
Interfax has also changed over this time by significantly expanding its scope and the area of its activities.
Interfax today is a group of 36 companies, and an acclaimed leader on Russia's information market that enjoys respect all over the world.
However, it is also important to point out what has not changed about Interfax.
We are not ashamed to read our news written over these twenty years, because we have always strived to meet the highest standards of independent journalism, to report news promptly and accurately, to remain impartial, and to seek exclusivity.
Interfax made its name in news that radically changed the country. From the 500 Days Program to the 1991 Communist coup, from the breakup of the Soviet Union to the establishment of the CIS, from the war in Chechnya to the August 2008 conflict in the Caucasus, and many more besides, all are events which people first learned about from our newswires and have now become part of history.
While Interfax started out as a political news agency, it has since exceeded the limits of news journalism and now provides virtually every kind of business information needed by banks, companies, and investors to successfully work on the markets.
Interfax has formed Russia's first national network of regional news agencies and has agencies in every federal district. It has also developed industry-specific agencies specializing in oil, gas, energy, and financial information. Interfax news agencies in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan all occupy leading positions on the news markets in each country.
Interfax Group's largest information project abroad is the Interfax-China news agency, which is currently the largest foreign media outlet in China.
Interfax's distribution companies in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany, Hong Kong, and Poland have direct contacts with thousands of clients, among them major international media outlets, government institutions, international corporations, and banks.
Interfax Group incorporates a number of specialized structures developing search databases and providing IR (Investor Relations) and disclosure services. Among them are the Interfax-Corporate Information Agency, which operates the biggest corporation information database in Russia, SPARK, which covers over 12 million companies from Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, and the Center of Economic Analysis, a leading analytical company in Russia and the CIS reporting rankings of banks and insurance companies under the Interfax-100 and Interfax-1000 brand names.
Interfax has set up a chain of press centers that has no equivalents in Russia or the CIS, which comprises 30 press centers in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan.
Interfax Group cooperates productively with global business giants. For instance, Moody's Interfax Rating Agency set up by Interfax and Moody's Investors Service, a global leader in the rating business, is the leader on the Russian rating services market.
At the end of 2004, Interfax started actively developing the credit history market, a business that was not only new to the company but to the Russian market in general, by setting up a joint venture called Experian Interfax with Experian, one of the world's leading credit bureaus. Experian Interfax is one of the top three credit bureaus in Russia.
Since 2006, the global information giant, Thomson Reuters, has been Interfax's strategic partner in Russia in providing IR services.
The Interfax-D&B joint venture set up by Interfax on a parity basis with the global corporation Dun & Bradstreet started operations in 2008. Interfax-D&B provides international clients with information on Russian companies based on the SPARK database.
However varied Interfax's areas of activity are, we continue to strive to meet the highest quality standards in all of them, with key emphasis placed on verification of information.
"We respect society's right to know truthful information and do all we can to make this information available to it," Interfax's Charter says.
We will work hard to make sure that this continues.