Azerbaijan Public Relations Association (APRA) held today a joint roundtable in cooperation with Azerbaijani Press Council on the topic of “Dialogue between media and PR”. The event was opened by Mr. Aflatun Amashov, member of the Parliament of Azerbaijan Republic and chairman of the Council, who spoke about relations between the media and specialists working in public relations and press-service departments. He mentioned the utmost importance of building proper relations with the publics which is stipulated by the legislation as well and should be strictly followed. At the same time, proper building of public relations requires professionalism. “Press secretaries participating here are quite famous journalists in our society today. Public relations play a great role in presentation of government and private institutions to the society. I believe that the newly-established Association of Public Relations of Azerbaijan will be implementing useful activities in this field as it unites professionals in its ranks. Therefore, our Council is ready to provide any support to the Association in their work”, – said Mr. Amashov.
The next speaker was chairman of APRA Mr. Ilham Mammadov, who informed the audience about the objectives and future plans of his organization. He noted that APRA aims to improve the level of education related to public relations, promote circumstances for personnel capacity building in this sphere and thus contribute to the development of PR in the country. “We at APRA will be working towards establishment of professional ethical standards of PR in our country and creation of opportunities for raising knowledge and skills of local PR practitioners. I am sure that APRA will make its contribution to the development of public relations in Azerbaijan”, – said Mr. Mammadov.
The event followed with speeches of other participants, talking about cooperation and projects between their organizations, both from public and private sector, and the media. Speakers discussed the current level of mutual understanding and interaction in this field and highly valued the media’s role as a vital information channel between corporations and the society.
The meeting ended with the announcement of Baku 1st Public Relations Forum to be held under the organizational support of APRA in April 2018.