The China Book Publishing Industry Report 2005 to 2006 was released by the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) in Beijing recently.

The report, published by the Publishing House of Renmin University, has six chapters including the overall development of China's publishing industry, imports and exports of China's books, human resources in publishing industry and the predictions on its future development.

The GAPP released in December 2006, the China Book Publishing Industry Report 2003 to 2004, which was the first of its kind. The report was translated to English by the Thomson Corporation.

Hao Zhensheng, the director and chief researcher of China Research Institute of Publishing Science said the new report will also be translated to English and will provide reference to foreign and domestic personnel in the publishing industry and those have interest in studying China's publishing industry.

Hao said compared with the first report published in 2006, the new report has more figures and detailed analysis.

Hao cited paper price hike as an example, saying the paper price increase is not a big issue to publishing industry in 2003 to 2004.

He said, "however the paper price hike also drove book's prices up in China's publishing industry since 2005".

The new report also analyzed the impact of increase of labor costs, printing prices on the publishing industry, he said.

The report, based on data provided by China's publishing houses, was compiled from May 2007.

(Xinhua News Agency February 11, 2008)