China's political advisors called for updating the country's traditional paper-based publishing industry by digital means in light of the rapid development of information technology.
A special investigation group, composed of members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), arrived here on May 6 to conduct field research about China's publishing industry.
The 11-day investigation in Shanghai and the southwestern Sichuan Province, organized by the Education, Science, Culture and Health Committee (ESCHC) of the CPPCC, will focus on reform and innovation of the publishing industry.
In Shanghai, delegates visited the Shanghai Century Publishing Group (SCPG) and Shanghai Xinhua Media Co., Ltd. Both have taken the lead in reforming and modernizing the traditional publishing industry.
The SCGP has published many digital products in recent years, including electronic books and an online dictionary and education program.
"Digital publishing ushered in a new era of the publishing industry's development," Jiang Shaogao, deputy director of the ESCHC, said at a seminar here on Thursday.
"It will profoundly reform the production and consumption concepts of the publishing industry and upgrade the industry," Jiang said.
Ma Shengrong, another member of the CPPCC National Committee, urged the proper protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) in tandem with the accelerated reform of the digital publishing industry.
"Despite the rapid progress of digital publishing, corresponding legislation still lags behind its development," Ma said.
"If we do not protect IPR properly from the very beginning, the digital industry will not enjoy sound development in the long run," he said.
According to a culture "blue paper" released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences early this year, 30 percent of handset users indicated that they would sign up to receive books and newspapers through mobile phones within the next five years.
The blue paper predicted that libraries and other users would purchase e-books and digital newspapers valued at more than 1 billion yuan (144 million U.S. dollars) during those five years.
It also estimated advertising revenues, linked to e-books and digital newspapers purchased by netizens and handset users, would reach 5 billion yuan in the next five years.
The Shanghai part of the study tour ended on Friday, and the delegates travel to Sichuan on Saturday.
Source: Xinhua
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