Petra was established on 16th of July, 1969, as an independent body linked to the ministry of information.

A special ordinance was enacted to give PETRA financial and administrative independence and to specify the powers of the agency's board and those of the director general.

The ordinance defines services that could be sold as: PETRA is an active member in the Federation of Arab News Agencies (FANA),[1] and the Non-Aligned Countries' News Agencies Pool.

The agency has correspondents in Cairo, Copenhagen, New York City, Tokyo, Bonn, Paris, Gaza, Ramallah, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Bahrain, Moscow, London, Kuwait, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Sana'a, Bucharest, Baghdad, Manama and Beirut.

Petra has come a long way since news bulletins were distributed internally through systems that feed communication lines and the mechanical Teleprinter, that later changed to computer sets, PETRA has now fully computerized news services.