India-EU publishing forum at NDWBF 2018

Held on 7 January 2018, the event saw presentations by Dr Satya Pal Singh, minister of state for HRD; Baldeo Bhai Sharma; Ambika Sharma, director general, international, Ficci; Annemarie Blumenhagen, director of rights, Ullstein Buchverlage, Germany; Antoine Gallimard; Marisol Schulz Manaut, director general, Guadaljara International Book Fair, Mexico; Urvashi Butalia, chair, Ficci publishing committee; Rantesh Jha, co-chair, Ficci publishing committee; Rita Chowdhury, director, NBT; Vikas Gupta, managing director, Wiley India; Monica Malhotra Kandhari, managing director, MBD group; and Karthika VK, Westland.

Tomasz Kozlowski, ambassador, Delegation of European Union to India, highlighted the rich cultural and literary tradition that both Europeans and Indian nurture and said, “It is clear that interest among European publishers in the Indian market will continue to grow in the coming years as the Indian book market promises considerable growth potential.”

The book publishing sector in Europe employs some 150,000 people directly and up to some 700,000 indirectly. In the 36-40 billion euros global book market, the European book publishing sector takes a 22-24 billion euros share.

Kozlowski said, “New trends in the publishing industries such as the use of eBooks might revolutionise the book markets both in Europe and India. This opportunity will allow us with the member states to jointly showcase the dynamic European publishing production in the growing Indian market, and bring contemporary European literature even closer to the Indian people.”

Baldeo Bhai Sharma emphasised on the need of advertising translated literature in the global market and said, “The business of publishing does not take sustenance only from the publication of original titles, which is of course the basis of the business, but it is the translation that provides the major dynamo.”

Jha said, “There is a need for right interpretation of law relate to copyrights, IP, rights and license.” The knowledge economy requires collaboration and cooperation from all the stakeholders to further create capacity building program for younger generation.”

Gallimard in his address said, "Forums like this allow future exchanges with a better knowledge of the expectations of the market and linguistic, demographic and creative dynamics that inhabit it.”

 The conference saw the participation from over 150 CXOs from India and the European Union.