Avid readers

Among other developments, in the last week of 2016, a plan for a national reading promotion campaign for the 13th Five-Year Plan, the first of its kind, was released.

Earlier, in mid-2016, 11 ministries joined hands to support physical bookstores and encourage creative business to help bookstores upgrade.

"In 2017, we plan to offer better services to the public," says Nie.

Meanwhile, in cities like Beijing, the Xicheng district has already turned many downtown shops into free public reading spaces.

In 2016, many reading-promotion events mainly organized by "avid readers", like the Reading Occupying Subways and the free circulation of books inspired by British actress Emma Watson, were also held.

Publishing going global

The minister also says that the rights to more than 10,000 Chinese titles had been sold overseas so far, and that the value of exports of printed books was now worth more than $100 million.

His ministry, as well as the Ministry of Culture and the China Writers Association, were also sponsoring Chinese books and translation fees to let them go global, he says.

In a related development, Chinese publishers are being seen at many international book fairs while the Beijing International Book Fair has become the world's second largest.

Nie Zhenning, a veteran publisher and director at the Taofen Foundation, says that he was now increasingly seeing publishers pushing to establish overseas branches and purchasing foreign entities as means to increase their international presence.