Reading the future

The National Book Expo held in Langfang and Tangshan, Hebei province. [Photo/Xinhua]

A recent expo reveals publishing trends. Mei Jia reports in Langfang, Hebei.

Visitors enjoyed interacting with two oval-shaped blue-and-white robots at the 27th National Book Expo in Langfang, Hebei province. One responded to the constant greetings by saying: "I've talked all morning. I'm tired."

The Hebei Publishing Group's robots educate children and tell them stories uploaded by the publisher.

About 960 publishers offered 240 reading and writers' events at the four-day expo that ended on Saturday. They showed 250,000 books, including 150,000 new titles at the main site in Langfang and a smaller venue in Hebei's Tangshan city.

About 810,000 people visited the Langfang site and bought 41 million yuan ($6 million) worth of books.

Set-priced trades reached 4.23 billion yuan.

Nie Chenxi, director of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, says: "The expo has continued showing the achievements of the country's publishing industry and promoting reading since its launch in 1980."

Nie says that the country's publishing sector, including print and circulation, generated 2.3 trillion yuan last year.