Chinese publishing items look abroad: figures

The year 2013 saw more than 23 million items, including books, periodicals and audio visual products in the publishing business "gone out", or shared overseas. That totals to over US $104 million.

The statistics were released by Wu Shangzhi, deputy director of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television during the 13th awards ceremony for outstanding export and import items in the publishing business at the Beijing International Book Fair.

Books in science and technology have shown the biggest growth in the "going out" efforts, where Chinese publishing items are introduced overseas. One third of all books exported in 2013 come under the science category. Among them, books on medicine are most welcome by the foreign market, according to the awards committee.

"We should tell the changes in today's China in books that go out," Wu said. "They should be of very high quality."