The Beijing International Book Fair is as big as it gets. The event opened yesterday featuring 639 international publishers from 50 countries all trying to sell their books in the world's biggest publishing nation.

There are about 1,200 stands to inspect and the expo's size is testament to China's booming book market and the legacy of a 3,000-year book-reading culture.

Sitting along side the foreign publishers are their Chinese counterparts, who are going all-out to promote their new titles to the outside world, following their success last year at the same event.

The Chinese publishers' efforts are part of a national project to popularize books about China around the world.

To bolster the national project, a working party, headed by the State Council Information Office and the General Administration of Press and Publication and set up in January this year, has drawn leading publishing houses from around the country.

The committee recognizes that books are the most traditional and widespread carrier of culture and an essential tool for communication. They hope the national project will encourage more joint-publishing of Chinese books between Chinese presses and their overseas partiners.

To cater for international publishers, Chinese presses have recommended novels, memoirs as well as photos and drawings, which share individual and group experiences over the centuries against the backdrop of China's long history and rich culture.

Some of the books are being printed in many different languages and publishers also hope to reverse the China's book trade deficit while trying to provide a wide range of stories and information about China.

Booming market

China is the largest publisher of books, magazines and newspapers in the world.

In book publishing alone, some 128,000 new titles of books were published last year, according to the General Administration of Press and Publication.

Sales of books on biology, social sciences and literature have all increased, as well as textbooks and study aids.

However, last year, China imported some 14 million titles of books, newspapers, magazines and other publications worth US$150 million.

Its media and publishing houses only exported 8 million titles with a combined revenue of US$20 million, Yu Yongzhan, vice-minister of the General Administration of Press and Publication, told a forum on book publishing this week.

The Project to Popularize Books of China was launched in 2004 as part of effort to make Chinese books better known to the world.

The project started when 70 kinds of Chinese books were translated into French and published by French publishers, as initiated by the State Council Information Office.

The books have been selling well in France.

The success in the co-operation between Chinese and French publishing houses has set a good model for similar Sino-overseas partnerships in book publishing.

Up till now, more than 10 publishers in Britain, France, Japan, the United States, Australia and Singapore have joined with Chinese counterparts to publish 170 kinds of books, with the financial backing of 3 million yuan (US$380,000).

China also publishes the annual "Catalogue of Recommended books for the Project to Popularize Books of China." Over the past two years, some 1,000 titles published by 20-odd Chinese publishers are listed in the catalogue.

These books are divided into 16 categories, covering the classics, philosophy, religion, and social sciences, economy, military affairs, politics and law, culture and education, arts, language, literature, history, biography, geography and tourism.

Science and technology, from natural science, engineering and technology to health and medicine, are also on the list.

There are also picture albums, children's books and encyclopedias.

The work committee has also opened a website, www.chinabookinternational.cn, to help interested publishers know more about the project.

(China Daily August 31, 2006)