About Us

Yonhap established an electronic system of writing and releasing news articles to its clients as early as 1988 for the first time in the history of the Korean press. With state-of-the-art equipment and a superior workforce, Yonhap successfully undertook its role as the key news agency for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, 2000 Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Seoul, and 2002 Korea/Japan FIFA World Cup. In recognition of Yonhap's role in promoting the country's image and distributing information deemed pivotal to addressing the domination of information by major Western news media, the National Assembly legislated in early 2003 to provide Yonhap with the financial and systemic assistance to reinforce its staff and equipment. Under the law on promotion of news agencies in South Korea, the government is to provide adequate financial support for Yonhap to maintain over 70 foreign correspondents and more than 100 reporters to write articles in English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French and Arabic by 2006. Yonhap currently has 19 correspondents in Washington, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, Beijing and several other major cities around the world to cover stories not only on Korean affairs but also on other international issues based on the Korean perspective. Among other cities currently covered by Yonhap correspondents are Los Angeles, New York, Hong Kong, Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, Hanoi, London, Shanghai and Geneva. Yonhap maintains contracts for the exchange of news services with AP, Reuters, UPI, AFP, Xinhua, Kyodo, Itar-Tass, DPA and 40 other foreign news agencies. Yonhap signed a contract with the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) of North Korea in December 2002 to exchange news services. Yonhap currently provides over 50 English-language news articles each day to nearly 50