Magazines may spearhead the opening-up of the media industry across the Taiwan Straits, as both Taiwan and the Chinese mainland are expected to open up wider to each other, industry insiders predicted yesterday.
"The magazine sector is expected to become one of the earliest to open up now that both sides of the Taiwan Straits have entered the World Trade Organization (WTO)," said Zhang Bohai, executive vice-chairman of China Periodicals Association.
He said the mainland and Taiwan have achieved great progress in co-operation in such sectors as book publication, copyright trade and the import and export of films and TV programs.
"It is highly possible that the magazine business will be the next one (to open up)," Zhang said.
Zhang was speaking at the opening ceremony of the Taiwan Magazine Exhibition -- the first of its kind on the mainland -- at Sanlian Taofen Books Center yesterday.
The weeklong event features more than 500 varieties of Taiwanese-published magazines in 12 categories, ranging from lifestyles, business, fashion, natural sciences, computers, and education to entertainment. A similar exhibition also opened in Shanghai yesterday.
James Jin, president of the Magazine Business Association of Taipei, expressed his optimism over strengthened co-operation between the magazine industries on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.
"There is huge potential for better co-operation between us and our mainland counterparts in future although the magazine industries on both sides are currently closed to each other," said Jin, who is also president of the popular Taipei-based Business Weekly.
He said the magazine industries in Taiwan and the mainland are highly complementary and share the same language and culture, and will thus benefit from co-operation.
The huge mainland market is extremely appealing to Taiwan's magazine industry and the island's rich experience in magazine publication and management will also prove useful for the development of the mainland's periodical sector, according to Jin.
There are now more than 8,000 kinds of magazines on the mainland and nearly 5,000 in Taiwan.
Ren Changjiang, deputy director of the International Periodical Department under the China National Publication, Import and Export Corporation, said his company imports several thousand varieties of newspapers and magazines from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao each year for customers.
Most of these imported newspapers and magazines focus on current affairs, lifestyles and economic and business categories, Ren said.
(China Daily October 15, 2002)
