The 2005 Beijing Book Fair opened on Tuesday at the Beijing International Expo Center. Over 400 publishers and 100 private book wholesalers are attending the event. While overseas wholesalers were also invited, they failed to put in an appearance.

From this year, China's book market is open to overseas wholesale distributors. The book fair was believed to offer them a good opportunity to explore the possibilities in China's book market. But unexpectedly, no overseas distributors turned up for the event.

Insiders say it will take time for overseas companies to conduct research on the market environment and go through necessary administration procedures before they actually enter the market. So far, domestic distributors haven't felt any competitive pressure from their overseas peers.

Ju Xiaodong, CEO of Tide Time Group, said, "I think now the pressure is not significant. Firstly, the overseas companies are still considering making their move; secondly, they are still looking for good opportunities."

Currently, there are more than 10,000 domestic book wholesalers in China. But most of them are small and competition lacks any formal structure.

The total sales volume in China came to about 4.8 billion US dollars last year, compared to the German media giant Bertelsmann which boasted a sales volume of 7.3 billion dollars.

Source: CCTV.com