The Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan should join forces to expand the overseas Chinese-language book market, publishers and book distributors at a forum agreed yesterday.
"Although having the richest resources for books, either in terms of a cultural background or its people, the mainland now lags behind Hong Kong and Taiwan," said Zhu Junbo, deputy director of the Shanghai Press and Publication Administration.
The lack of marketing techniques and a supportive export policy was cited by mainland publishers as the two major reasons.
For example, mainland publishers are not able to sell books directly to overseas markets. Instead, their books have to go through a handful of exporters.
"Thus the publishers are not able to contact the overseas markets directly or publish tailor-made books in accordance," said Zhuang Zhixiang, president of the Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
The separation of the publishing houses and targeted markets makes publishers unwilling to explore overseas markets, which consists of about 20 million Chinese.
Shanghai Book Traders -- China's leading book exporter -- only ships US$1.5 million worth of books a year, said Chen Weiye, vice-president of the company.
He said the current pricing scheme made mainland books less competitive compared to Taiwan and Hong Kong, which have been involved in the overseas market for decades.
(China Daily February 21, 2003)
