SLBPA signs MoU with China

The Chinese Government and the Sri Lanka Book Publishers' Association (SLBPA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote Sri Lankan books in China and Chinese books in Sri Lanka.

Party Secretary of the Leadership Group of the Communist Party of China and Vice Minister of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People's Republic of China, Jiang Jianguo and President of the Sri Lanka Book Publishers' Association (SLBPA), Vijitha Yapa signed the agreement last week to promote books from their countries.

The MoU is aimed at facilitating book fairs and mutual translation and publishing of quality works of the two countries.

Jiang Jianguo said that this is the first time China had sent a delegation of publishing professionals to Sri Lanka and he was pleased to see that one publisher in Sri Lanka had already translated 17 books on China.

He said that books have a fundamental role to play because they are everlasting compared to a newspaper which lasts for a day and magazines which may last up to one month.

Jianguo said that China publishes 410,000 titles annually and he hoped that the first initiative will be the translation and publication of the classics of each country in their languages.