Minister of Information U Aung Kyi said a bill had been submitted to the parliament's Lower House for approval, Xinhua news agency reported citing local press.
"The bill was drafted with the help of UNESCO to enable it to be in conformity with the principles of diversity of media pluralism," U Aung Kyi told the parliament Monday.
Out of Myanmar's literate population of 49 million, 43 million residents in rural areas cannot afford to subscribe to newspapers.
"If the parliament approves the public service media bill, there will be media pluralism with public service media, state-owned media, joint-venture media, non-profit media and ethnic and community-owned media in the country," Kyi said.
Myanmar's state English version daily newspaper -- The New Light of Myanmar under the ministry -- will be operated under a joint venture with local privately-owned Global Direct Link Company.
The government started media reform in June 2011 and in August 2012, domestic media publication control was fully liberalised.
In December 2012, Myanmar announced free publication of private daily newspapers and dissolved its Press Scrutiny and Registration Division.
Since then, 31 private daily newspapers had been granted license for publication, of which 24 are Myanmar-language papers and two in English.
source: Bernama
No comments:
Post a Comment