LIMA – Agencia EFE, Spain’s international news agency, is celebrating its 50th anniversary in Peru with the inauguration of a photo exhibit reviewing the key events and figures marking the last half century in the South American country.

The exposition was inaugurated Tuesday by EFE president Jose Antonio Vera before a crowd comprised of leaders of the main Peruvian communications media outlets and diplomatic representatives, including Peruvian Foreign Minister Ana Maria Sanchez and well-known chef Gaston Acurio.

“Earlier, we were a very small agency and now we’re in 120 of the world’s countries,” emphasized Vera in his remarks inaugurating the exhibit at the Cultural Center of Spain.

He recalled that the EFE bureau in Lima opened in 1966 and was the second one the agency established in Latin America, after its office in Buenos Aires, which had been launched in 1965.

Vera emphasized EFE’s importance as the largest Spanish-language news agency in the world and its close links with the history of Peru over the past 50 years.

Acurio said that EFE’s half century in Peru has provided “the great good fortune to be able to have ... a news agency whose banner has always been impartiality; the search for truth; precise, correct, rapid information; and the ongoing presence in the news.”

He also emphasized the important role that EFE has played in the monitoring and spread of the Peruvian gastronomic boom.

The exhibit entitled “EFE in Peru: 50 years in 50 photos” will be open to the public through May 28 and is sponsored by Telefonica with the collaboration of the Spanish Embassy in Peru and Globalia.

This review of the last 50 years includes sports, social and political events, as well as images of personalities from culture and politics.

Also present at the inauguration of the exhibit were Spain’s envoy to Peru, Ernesto de Zulueta; the director of the Cultural Center of Spain, David Ruiz; and the ambassador of the European Union in Lima, Irene Horejs.

Founded in 1939, EFE is the world’s fourth-largest news agency, with more than 3,000 professionals working in 120 countries, and generates nearly 3 million items per year of text, photo, audio, video and multimedia.

EFE received the 1995 Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities in recognition of the work of several generations of professionals and of the agency’s efforts to strengthen relations between Spain and Latin America.