Overseas investors have shown growing enthusiasm over entering the
Chinese publishing market since the country joined the World Trade
Organization (WTO) at the end of last year. The Press and
Publication Administration has been receiving an avalanche of
applications for setting up printing, packaging and publication
distribution businesses in China as it loosens market access for
overseas investors, according to a national meeting on Sino-foreign
exchanges and cooperation in press and publishing held recently in
Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.
China's publishing sector now enjoys a considerable volume of trade
with the rest of the world and has established a book import and
export system operating at a number of levels within country.
In
the meantime, overseas investments into the industry of processing
and manufacturing of publications have been booming. In 2000, a
total of US$350 million of overseas investments into 17 printing
houses were ratified. In 2001, 22 printing houses lured investments
totalling US$160 million. From January to August 2002, 63 packaging
and printing projects with total investments of US$660 million in
south, east, and western China all won approval.
China's entry into the WTO also has significantly boosted its
capacity to produce DVDs as several foreign-invested CD-R
production lines have recently started operations. The level of
investment for single projects is multiplying -- some projects have
involved investments surpassing 100 million yuan (US$12.1 million)
with up to 50 production lines. It has been forecast that the next
hot spot for international investors will be the circulation
sector.
Similarly, China's copyright trade has undergone admirable
developments. Statistics show that from 1990 to 2000 China imported
at least 18,000 items of copyright. At the Ninth Beijing
International Book Fair (BIBF), held from May 24 to 28, 2002, the
first international book fair following China's WTO entry,
attracted signatures on as many as 8,000 letters of intent.
Meanwhile cooperative publishing of periodicals moves forward as
international copyright traders have pushed into the area of
magazines. Sino-foreign co-published lifestyle and technology
magazines have made a positive impact on China's magazine market
and are proving profitable.
(china.org.cn by Chen Chao, September 16, 2002)