Although a majority of its newspaper and broadcast clients receive their service direct, UPI has maintained close relationships with many news agencies for many years. Its first service to Europe was deliver via Exchange Telegraph, the British agency, and its first client in the Orient was Nippon Dempo which later merged with Domei, predecessor to Kyodo, the Japanese news service which UPI serves today.
In some cases such as in Japan and Argentina, UPI serves newspapers and broadcasters direct as well as one of more news agencies. UPI had agreements with 39 agencies as of the end of 1977. (They are listed separately below.)
During 1977, representatives from approximately 50 foreign news organizations visited UPI's New York headquarters. Many represented news services while others were from newspapers, government information offices or other organizations interested in international news coverage or related technical matters.
Beginning early in 1978, UPI will be associated with a Norwegian consulting firm in a developmental project for the Saudi Arabian News Agency. During the past year, UPI representatives have met formally or informally with representatives of several African countries about their news agency plans. UPI is willing to assist such projects in any of several ways ranging from informal advice given in casual conversation to a formal paid consultancy to provide personnel to assist in development and implementation. News agency journalists will be accepted for training periods at UPI world or divisional headquarters.
UPI also welcomes news agencies as clients on a fair payment basis and desires to discuss such arrangements with representatives of such agencies. It is not willing, however, to exchange its international service on a equal basis for another agency's national or regional service. Neither is it willing to accept an agency's national service as the only source of news from that country without the right to gather news with its own personnel.
Here is the list of agencies that UPI had agreements with at the end of 1977:
1. BSS (Bangladesh) 2. NAB (Burma) 3. Antara (Indonesia) 4. Kyodo (Japan) 5. Jiji (Japan) 6. Sun Telephoto (Japan) 7. Orient Press (Korea) 8. CNA (Taipei) 9. Agencia JB (Brazil) 10. Noticias Argentinas (Argentina) 11. ANOP (Portugal) 12. ANP (Netherlands) 13. ANSA (Italy) 14. Agerpress (Romania) 15. ANA (Greece) 16. BELGA (Belgium) 17. CAF (Poland) 18. CTK (Czechoslovakia) 19. DPA (West Germany) 20. EFE (Spain) 21. INA (Iraq) 22. ITIM (Israel) 23. KNA (Kenya) 24. MTI (Hungary) 25. NTB (Norway) 26. AND (East Germany) 27. PAP (Poland) 28. SANA (Syria) 29. SUNa (Sudan) 30. Tanjug (Yugoslavia) 31. TASS (USSR) 32. TAP (Tunisia) 33. THA (Turkey) 34. APS (Algiers) 35. KUNA (Kuwait) 36. Qatar News Agency (Qatar) 37. PARS (Iran) 38. MAP (Morocco) 39. Saudi Press Agency (Saudi Arabia)