Gov't unveils five-year plan to promote publishers

The government will push to build a center to support exports of publications and give tax benefits to book buyers as part of measures to boost the local publishing industry suffering from dwindling domestic demands, the culture ministry said Wednesday.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced a five-year plan, including those measures, to promote the publishing industry.

"The importance of publishing becomes increasingly larger but the traditional publishing industry focused on paper books is in a recession," Park Yeong-guk, chief of the ministry's media policy bureau, said during a press briefing. "The five-year plan has a strategy to deal with changes in circumstances such as the rapid growth of e-books and the rise in overseas demands."

The number of new paper books published in the country has dwindled from 102 million in 2010 to 100 million in 2011 while the e-book market has continued to explode.

By contrast, the e-book market is expected to grow from US$280 million last year to $400 million in 2015, according to the ministry.

A total of 203.8 billion won (US$182 million) will be spent for the five-year project that begins this year, with the largest portion of the budget to be allocated to a plan aimed to boost exports of local publications, the ministry said.

The plan includes establishing a government center for supporting book exports and running a pool of professional translators.

In order to help push up paper book demands, the government said it will push for giving tax benefits to book buyers and set up what is tentatively called "a book sharing center" to match book donors and recipients.

The government will also build a computerized system to track industry figures and provide other information on the publishing market to ensure "sustainable growth" of the industry, the ministry said. (Yonhap)