Output of China's publishing industry exceeds 1 trillion yuan

The yearly output value of China's publishing industry exceeded 1 trillion yuan in 2009, up around 20 percent from 2008, according a report on China's publishing industry released by the Chinese Institute of Publishing Science.

The report said China's book sales rose about 20 percent in 2009, and the printing industry's output value reached over 574.6 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 25 percent from the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of digital publications grew 50 percent compared to 2008, and their output value reached over 79.9 billion yuan, with the total amount of investments increasing around 35 percent.

China published 7 billion copies of books in 2009, and its annual number of book copies published was among the world's largest for five consecutive years.

China also published 43.7 billion newspaper copies last year, and its annual number of daily newspaper copies was the world's largest for nine consecutive years. In the same year, China published 3.1 billion periodical copies, over 9,000 kinds of electronic periodicals and 500,000 e-books with a total circulation of more than 30 million.

According to the report, the following trends will continue in China's publishing industry in 2010: Transforming the development pattern will be the industry's focus, and the restructuring of certain publishing houses will be further enhanced. Mergers and acquisitions as well as capital operations will be strengthened. More publications will take the form of multimedia, and related industries will be further amalgamated.

Financial cooperation between state-owned and non-state-owned publishers will continue to be promoted. The pattern in which the public sector remains dominant and diverse sectors of the economy develop side-by-side will be further reinforced. In addition, capital will go global, and China's publishing industry will globalize accordingly.

By People's Daily Online