This Day, That Year: April 9

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On April 9, 2002, the State Council, China's Cabinet, approved the creation of the China Publishing Group to enhance the country's publishing sector. The group was officially set up in 2004.

It brought together 38 large publishing houses, including the Commercial Press, Zhonghua Book Co, China International Publishing Trade Corp, China Book Import and Export Corp and Xinhua Bookstore.

To better promote Chinese culture, more than 20 publishing houses, bookstores and offices were established overseas by the company and their branches were soon operating in more than 130 countries and regions. The company also set up special book sections in 21 countries and regions to introduce books by Chinese authors to the world.

In 2004, China Book International - a project that provides translation and marketing support for publishers to venture abroad - was launched by the State Council Information Office.

The project led to thousands of agreements with more than 600 overseas publishers in 70 countries for the publication of about 3,000 titles.

These were consequently translated into about 50 languages.

Globally, China has been featured in 17 major international book fairs. The Beijing International Book Fair is also becoming a key international event. An item from Sept 2, 1988, in China Daily showed the fair attracting 1,430 publishers from 36 countries.

Hailed as the world's second-largest international book meeting, the fair last year attracted 2,500 publishing organizations from 93 countries and regions. A total of 300,000 titles were displayed in the sea of books.

The State Administration of Press and Publication said that China sold 13,816 copyrights to overseas buyers in 2017, up 24.1 percent year-on-year.