Emirates News Agency (WAM)
Overview
The Emirates News Agency, universally known by its Arabic acronym WAM (from Wakalat Anba'a al Emarat), is the official news agency of the United Arab Emirates. Headquartered in Abu Dhabi, it is the UAE's state wire service: the channel through which official news of the federation — its leadership, government, economy and development — is gathered, verified and distributed to media at home and around the world, in Arabic, English and a wide range of other languages. For this directory, WAM's Indian dimension is its reporting from India: the agency files regular reports datelined from New Delhi on UAE–India relations, summits and bilateral business, reflecting the depth of the relationship between the Emirates and India and the large Indian community in the Gulf.
WAM provides multimedia news services — text reports, photographs, video, infographics and documentaries — and comprehensive coverage of the country's political, economic and developmental activities. Its copy appears across UAE newspapers and broadcasters, on international news platforms and aggregators, and in the output of partner agencies worldwide.
History and Founding
WAM was established in November 1976, when the young UAE federation — itself founded only in 1971 — decided to create a national news agency to communicate news and information about the nascent state. It began its professional work the following year: the Arabic service started on 18 June 1977, and the English service followed in December 1978, established under journalist Peter Hellyer. From the beginning, the mandate was outward-facing as well as domestic: to transmit UAE news to the rest of the world, covering the country's political, economic and social development, and to gather news of the state's representation abroad — its diplomacy, humanitarian missions, delegations and exhibitions.
In an interview about the agency's development, its long-serving leadership described WAM growing into one of the largest news agencies in the Arab world, with around 180 employees in the UAE and nearly 30 overseas offices and correspondents at that time, headquartered in Abu Dhabi with offices across the emirates in Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah and Al Ain. Five decades on, the agency approaches its fiftieth anniversary in 2026 as a fully digital, multilingual operation.
Ownership and Governance
WAM is a federal state agency, funded by the state and aligned with the UAE's federal media structures. For much of its life it operated under the National Media Council. In 2025, the UAE restructured its federal media architecture: Federal Decree-Law No. 11 of 2025 created the National Media Authority (NMA), a Cabinet-affiliated federal body that consolidated the UAE Media Council, the National Media Office and the Emirates News Agency, with the new arrangement taking effect from the start of 2026. Under the decree-law, developing WAM as the official national channel for publishing, distributing and translating approved official state news forms part of the authority's mandate. WAM therefore continues to function as the UAE's official news service, now housed within the consolidated authority rather than standing alone.
Editorially, WAM is an official agency and makes no claim to stand apart from the state it serves: its role is to publish the authoritative record of UAE government activity and positions. Newsrooms using its copy treat it accordingly — as the official voice of the Emirates, valuable precisely because its reports of leadership meetings, decrees, statements and policy announcements constitute the primary source.
Services, Languages and Products
WAM's core product is its wire: a continuous flow of text reports in Arabic and English, supplemented by photographs, video, infographics and documentaries. The agency expanded its language services steadily; it has broadcast news in a growing list of international languages — nine at one stage of its development — and by the time of the first Global Media Congress in Abu Dhabi, WAM's languages were reported to reach 19. It launched a Hebrew language service in April 2021, a step that followed the normalisation of relations between the UAE and Israel and illustrated how the agency's language expansion tracks the country's diplomacy.
Distribution runs through the agency's website, wam.ae, through direct feeds to subscribers and partner media, and through social and messaging channels, including an English-language Telegram channel that republishes its stories. WAM has also showcased technology-led services: at the Global Media Congress, its pavilion presented the "WAM News" digital system built on artificial intelligence and advanced software for managing media work, and a presence for its headquarters in the "Wamverse" metaverse. The Global Media Congress itself — organised by the ADNEC Group in partnership with WAM and first hosted in Abu Dhabi in November 2022 — has become one of the agency's flagship platforms, bringing international media organisations to the UAE capital.
International Network and Partnerships
WAM operates through a network of foreign correspondents around the world and multiplies its reach through agency alliances. It is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council news agencies grouping, the Federation of Arab News Agencies (FANA), the International Islamic News Agency, the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool and the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA). It has cooperation and news exchange agreements with agencies including the Sudan News Agency, Bernama of Malaysia, Xinhua of China, the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Petra of Jordan, Indonesia's national news agency and Yemen's Saba News Agency, and has cooperated with Turkey's Anadolu Agency since 2012.
Partnership-building is a stated strategy: at Expo 2020 Dubai, WAM signed more than 19 international agreements with media entities, including a set of deals with Latin American outlets under which the parties exchange daily news in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic, along with images and video. Its Director-General at the time, Mohammed Jalal Al Rayssi, framed such agreements as a way to increase the agency's geographical exposure and carry the UAE's cultural message to new audiences — language that underlines WAM's dual identity as both a news wire and an instrument of public diplomacy.
WAM's Reporting from India
India is one of the most frequent foreign datelines in WAM's output, for structural reasons: the UAE and India are major trade and energy partners, bound by a comprehensive economic partnership, constant high-level visits and one of the world's largest expatriate communities — Indians form the biggest expatriate group in the Emirates. WAM's New Delhi-dateline reports document that relationship in near-real time. Recent examples carried internationally include the UAE delegation led by the Undersecretary for Energy and Petroleum Affairs to the BRICS Energy Ministers' Meeting hosted by India in June 2026, and the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince's meeting with India's Prime Minister on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi in February 2026.
Business coverage follows the same pattern: in March 2023, a WAM report from New Delhi announced a UAE–India investor conference in Srinagar, at which Emirati investment in Jammu and Kashmir — including a shopping centre project and food processing and logistics hubs linked to Kashmiri exports of apples, saffron, walnuts and dried fruits to the Gulf — was to be advanced. WAM also reports the human and diplomatic courtesies of the relationship, such as the UAE foreign ministry's condolences after a fatal hotel fire in New Delhi. Its planned cooperation with Indian public broadcasting was reported as early as 2017, when WAM was set to sign an agreement with Prasar Bharati during the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince's visit to India as Republic Day chief guest.
Role in the News Ecosystem
Inside the UAE, WAM is the first draft of official news: presidential and ministerial activity, federal decrees, economic announcements, humanitarian operations and the country's positions on regional questions are issued through the agency and then carried by newspapers, television and digital outlets across the Emirates — including the Malayalam and other Indian-language media consumed by the expatriate majority. Internationally, it is the source foreign newsrooms cite for the UAE's official line, and its multilingual services deliberately project the country's developmental and humanitarian narrative to audiences from Latin America to Asia. For Indian media, WAM functions as a wire of record for a bilateral relationship that touches trade, energy, aviation, remittances and millions of families — which is why its New Delhi reporting is a standing resource rather than an occasional one.
How to Access WAM
WAM's news is freely readable on its website, wam.ae, in Arabic, English and its other language services, and its stories are widely republished by partner agencies, newspapers and news aggregators such as Dailyhunt in India, where its English copy appears under the Emirates News Agency byline. Media organisations seeking direct feeds, exchange agreements or event partnerships approach the agency through its Abu Dhabi headquarters and its parent National Media Authority. Journalists and researchers following UAE–India relations will find the agency's New Delhi, Dubai and Abu Dhabi datelines, taken together, form the most complete official chronicle of the relationship available from a single wire.
