?People select books on the 13th Ankara book fair in Ankara, Turkey, Feb. 18, 2019. The 13th Ankara book fair has attracted tens of thousands of book lovers since it opened last Friday with many young students who wanted to make a difference with their reading enthusiasm. (Xinhua/Qin Yanyang)
by Burak Akinci
ANKARA, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- The 13th Ankara book fair has attracted tens of thousands of book lovers since it opened last Friday with many young students who wanted to make a difference with their reading enthusiasm.
"Our teachers have said that if we read books, we will learn a lot about the world and I am exited to be here. My parents gave me some money to buy books," Zeynep, 10-year-old girl who came with her schoolmates, told Xinhua, before entering the massive fair compound.
The book fair with Italy as its guest of honor this year, was organised under the support of Turkey's Ministry of National Education with the participation of over 300 publishing houses and will open until Feb. 24.
Every year, there will be a country as the guest of honor of the fair. Organisers told Xinhua that in the future, China could also be an honor guest of the fair as translated novels of several Chinese writers like Nobel laureate Mo Yan, were on display this year and were very well received.
In Turkey, reading is not very fashionable among youngsters against the challenge of tablets and video games, so a book fair is particularly important for instilling the love of books.
According to a recent poll conducted by Istanbul's Kadir Has University, the number of Turks who "do not read books at all" increased by 8.1 percent, reaching 60.9 percent. Those read "one day in a month or less" increased by 4.1 percent to reach 15.3 percent.
There are also economic reasons behind this decrease in reading books and printed media. After a currency turmoil last summer, the price of imported paper soared in Turkey, making it difficult to get by for publishers.
"The price of the paper has gone up very considerably, up to 100 percent, and it is a real problem," Alp Ozalp, sales and marketing coordinator at Kirmizi Kedi (the Red Cat) publishing house, told Xinhua.
"We didn't make a hike in our prices for the 2018 editions of the book that we publish but we are compelled to proceed to an update of our prices for new editions this year," he explained.
Ozalp said that this year, there were more people attending the fair but the sales decreased, a sign of the deteriorating economic outlook of Turkey, which was a victim since last year's currency crash followed by a rising inflation that caused prices to soar in every field of the economy.
Turkey has imported paper since its only mill closed nearly a decade ago, leaving publisher very vulnerable to currency fluctuations. Several newspapers and periodical magazines closed in recent months.
In order to address hardships, the Turkish government took measures in various fields. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced recently that the 8-percent value-added tax (VAT) will be cut to zero on book, magazines and newspapers, a decision welcomed by publishers and book lovers.
The move was aimed at making books and printed media affordable as well as supporting publishers that have been disadvantaged by the rampant digitalisation of industry, Erdogan explained.
"It's certainly a good move for publishers which are struggling," Necdet Dumelli, from Itesim publishing house, told Xinhua.
He called the government to take a similar decision regarding the 18-percent VAT imposed on paper purchases.
"It's a bit absurd to scrap the VAT on book's sales without doing the same on paper purchases. But we try to remain positive for the future," he said.
Dumelli added that his company has already taken the decision of scrapping the 8-percent tax from books before the official decision as "a contribution" to the purses of book's lovers who can't afford to buy as much books as they did in the past.
