site.btaPakistan's Punjab Province Shows Interest in BTA Information on Study Opportunities at Bulgarian Universities

Pakistan’s largest province, Punjab, expects the cooperation agreement between Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) and Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) to provide more information about opportunities for Pakistani students to study at Bulgarian universities, it was noted by Speaker of the Provincial Assembly Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan at a meeting in the provincial capital Lahore with BTA Director General Kiril Valchev and Bulgarian Ambassador to Pakistan Irena Gancheva.

The hosts stressed that of Punjab’s population of about 130 million, roughly 65% are young people, among whom there is strong interest in high-quality higher education, particularly in medicine and agriculture. Pakistan’s total population exceeds 252 million, making it the world’s fifth most populous country; nearly 35% of its citizens are under 14 years of age, and the median age is 23.

Ambassador Gancheva noted that Plovdiv, like Lahore the country’s second-largest city, has strong agricultural and medical universities with which cooperation opportunities could be explored. She added that Pakistani students can also study in Bulgaria through the Erasmus+ programme supporting education, training, youth and sport in Europe. Gancheva recalled that for a third consecutive year Pakistani students rank first in the number of scholarships awarded under this programme for studies at European universities. She told BTA that in recent years between 30 and 60 Pakistani students have been studying in Bulgaria.

BTA has open-ended agreements with all 51 universities in Bulgaria for ongoing partnership through the systematic provision of informational materials for free-access distribution with cleared copyrights, including in its English-language service.

On Wednesday, BTA and Pakistan’s national news agency APP, which maintains a large correspondent bureau in Lahore, signed a news exchange agreement. Under the deal, the parties will provide each other, free of charge via the internet, with news, photos and video services in English. In addition, each agency will provide the other every day with one item covering a major domestic news story, including English-language text and a photo, for publication on the partner’s distribution channels with free access for all visitors, with explicit attribution of the source.

In addition to purchasing content from five global news agencies, following the agreement with APP, BTA now provides Bulgarian media free access to news from a further 51 agencies across 4 continents with which it has similar cooperation agreements. In the concept under which Valchev was unanimously re-elected by Parliament on December 4, 2025, for a second term as BTA Director General, the agency set a goal to conclude free news-exchange agreements with national news agencies from another 25 countries over the next five years.