A large book center,200audio and video chain stores and 100 community chain bookstores are to open in Shanghai this year,Jiefang Daily reported today.

The book center of more than 4,000 square meters will be opened by the Shanghai Xinhua Publishing Group,a co-operative by the city's 24 leading book companies.

Representatives of the Xinhua company said in three to five years such large-scale bookstores will be established throughout the city to form a book selling network.The 400-million yuan (US$48.3million)Shanghai Book Mall in the Fuzhou Cultural Street was opened in 1995.

Xinhua is also to open more than 200chain stores specialized in audio and video products by the year-end.

A key project underway is the establishment of 100 community chain bookstores this year,local government officials said.Residents will be able to buy,borrow and read books at such stores.The final objective is to link local bookstores in a chain with those in other parts of the country to help enrich the local book supply,officials said.

Some 100 publishing companies from across the country and more than 40 local ones attended the 2002 Shanghai Book Fair yesterday in the Shanghai Everbright Exhibition Center.Some 80,000 books were displayed.

In Shanghai,there has been an annual increase of more than 10,000 square meters in the area covered by bookstores since 1998. The total increase in the last four years nearly doubled that of the previous 50years.Forty-eight bookstores were opened in the city last year.

( eastday.com June 24, 2002)