Global publishers descend on Beijing for book fair

The 29th Beijing International Book Fair opened at the China National Convention Center on Thursday. With a theme of deepening exchanges and mutual learning, the five-day book fair features more than 200,000 book titles from 2,500 publishers from 56 countries and regions. Algeria is this year's guest of honor.

On the first day of the book fair, various events showed the trend of deepening cooperation between publishers from China and overseas, and publishers are expecting more cooperation achieved through this international platform.

China Social Sciences Press launched the multilingual book series of the studies on Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

Zhen Zhanmin, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the new era thought is the essence of Chinese culture and the Chinese spirit in the contemporary era, a new leap forward in the Chinese localization of Marxism, and a powerful guidance for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. He added it is of great significance to publish the multilingual book series that offers a good interpretation of the thought so that the world can better understand it.

The 12-volume series is an important achievement of the studies on the new era thought that was completed by nearly 100 scholars and experts taking more than three years, said Zhao Jianying, head of China Social Sciences Press. The Chinese version was published in 2019.

So far, 18 book titles from the series have been published, including versions in English, Korean, Russian, Nepali, Arabic, Hebrew and Polish.

Kiran Gautam, president of the Nepal Contemporary Publishing House, said at the launch ceremony that they have published a lot of children's books, but as cooperation with Chinese publishers deepens, they have also published a lot of academic books about China's reform and opening-up, poverty alleviation and political studies.

The Nepali publisher has published two book titles of the series — A Study of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and Xi Jinping's Historical Outlook on Governance for a New Era — which have performed well in the Nepali market, he said.

The new era thought is a very important subject, from which many small countries like Nepal can see how China has developed fast, the Chinese economy has grown fast and how China has lifted itself out of poverty, and borrow from the experience, he said.

At the pavilion of Italian publishers, Gianpaolo Bruno, chief representative of Italian Trade Agency Beijing and general coordinator for China and Mongolia, said that it was his first Beijing International Book Fair, and he expected to see a lot of interesting cooperation between Chinese and Italian publishers.

Despite the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, last year, as the most important Eastern market for Italian publishers, China saw a 22-percent rise year-on-year in the revenues of books exported to Italy and a 28-percent rise in the revenues of books imported from Italy, he said.

"We strongly believe this is a fundamental platform for bilateral exchange of ideas of publishing products and copyrights, so it's a business matchmaking platform to which we attach the utmost importance. We keep investing on this platform, trying to bring more and more Italian publishing companies that are very interested in exploring the vast Chinese market that is ever growing, especially after COVID-19," he said.