ONE of the international guests invited to the 7th China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair (ICIF), International Booksellers Federation (IBF) Director Francoise Dubruille spoke highly of the Shenzhen Book City CBD store when she was asked to comment on her Shenzhen trip.

    Shenzhen was a dynamic city and such a large bookstore like the Shenzhen Book City CBD store was rare in Europe, Dubruille said in an interview Friday.

    A longtime European Booksellers Federation director and IBF director, Dubruille was invited to attend a forum on China’s digital publishing industry and a seminar on Shenzhen’s book industry during the ICIF. IBF is the top international organization in the book retailing, which is also on the UNESCO World Book Capital committee.

    “I really like the ambience in the book store. It is not only a place to sell books, but also has entertainment. I am also amazed at the variety of cultural events held at the bookstore,” Dubruille said.

    What impressed Dubruille was the cultural pride of Shenzhen people. One of the world’s largest book centers, the Shenzhen Book City CBD store opened in November 2006. Occupying more than 84,000 square meters, the three-floor book mall houses more than books. It also has restaurants, antique shops, convenience stores, art shops, and other shops to satisfy a wide demand. It was the first “experience bookstore,” or book shopping mall, in the country.

    The most interesting aspect of the book city, however, is the first floor of the southern zone, which houses a 24-hour bookstore named Starlight Reading Club, a bookshop selling second-hand books called Shangshu Bar and a store for imported books called Yiwen Bookstore. Each of these stores is the first of their kind in the city.

    In 2010, the sales volume of the Shenzhen Book City CBD store surpassed 122 million yuan (US$18.48 million), of which imported books accounted for 56 million yuan. The Shenzhen Book City CBD store receives over 10 million customers per year, and an average of one social reading activity every 1.5 days.

    For Shenzhen, a candidate for UNESCO’s World Book Capital title, the CBD store is only one of the many bookstores. In addition to the CBD store, the Luohu store and Nanshan store each occupy an area of over 30,000 square meters. More than 500,000 titles published in China are sold in Shenzhen bookstores. Of the top 10 bookstores with the biggest sales volume in China, three are in Shenzhen.

    Shenzhen has 2,623 book sales agencies, and sales volume in 2010 was about 1.2 billion yuan, which makes Shenzhen the biggest market for books in China.

    (SD News)