Oxford, 18 April 2012 - Publishing Technology and CNPIEC, the China National Publications Import and Export Corporation, unveiled the Digital Gateway, the most significant digital publishing platform ever launched for Chinese libraries, in a special ceremony at the London Book Fair yesterday.

 The digital portal has been developed by Publishing Technology, the largest industry provider of software and services, on the company’s flagship online publishing platform, pub2web, and is managed by CNPIEC, the largest and most highly-developed publication import and export group in China. With semantically enriched content and interfaces in English and Mandarin, the site directly links international publishers to over 10,000 of CNPIEC’s public and academic member libraries and potentially millions of new users.

 Through the Digital Gateway, international publishers will be able to extend their reach into a burgeoning, untapped market, attracting new audiences to digest their content and opening up new revenue potential in the process. CNPIEC is the largest company fully licensed by the Chinese government to import publications, and the new site, in-line with the government’s long term digital publishing plans, will help improve online access and discoverability of content in Chinese libraries.

 With many publishers and aggregators already showing great interest in negotiating partnerships with CNPIEC, Publishing Technology and CNPIEC predict that in the next two years over a million different content sources will be live and accessible on the site.

 Mrs Wei Wu, Deputy President of CNPIEC, commented: “The Digital Gateway is a significant new development in the digitisation of Chinese libraries and a refreshing new distribution channel for overseas publishers. By taking advantage of the current library market coverage of CNPIEC and having their content hosted on a leading digital technology, publishers from all over the world will be able to extend visibility and discoverability of their content to a new growing market.”

 George Lossius, CEO at Publishing Technology, stated: “These are exciting times to be working in China. The academic sector is booming, the government is investing heavily in the country’s educational infrastructure, and the appetite for Western content in China is now greater than ever. Yet at the same time, the digital publishing landscape is still in its infancy.”

 “We are extremely proud to be playing such an important role in the development of Chinese library digitisation and opening up new avenues of collaboration on content and culture that never existed before. The Digital Gateway is set to dramatically shake-up content consumption in China and we are extremely excited to offer publishers from around the world the unique opportunity to this resource, make their content go further and enjoy its lucrative benefits.” he concluded.

 - ENDS –

 Notes to Editors:

For more information, please contact:

Emily Taylor Gregory, Publishing Technology plc

Tel: +44 1865 397873

Email: emily.taylor[at]publishingtechnology[dot]com

 Publishing Technology plc:

Publishing Technology’s products and services include advance, ingentaconnect, VISTA, author2reader, pub2web, ICS and PCG. The Publishing Technology group enables publishers to focus on their core competences by providing a single, trusted partner for both technology requirements and business development services. It is one of the largest providers of software and services for the publishing industry, servicing eight out of ten of the world's largest publishers. The group’s proposition uniquely spans front and back office systems – complemented by a range of business development services – to provide the industry's only end-to-end suite of software specifically designed to support the publishing process. Capabilities cover editorial & production, product information, billing & fulfilment, content conversion & hosting, website development, marketing programs, information commerce, customer relationship management, rights & royalties and business intelligence. All application modules can be configured independently to meet specific publishers' needs and to allow flexible integration with existing systems. Associated sales and marketing services include consultancy and research, sales representation and telemarketing. The company is listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange and has offices in the UK, US, Brazil, India, China and Australia.

 CNPIEC:

China National Publications Import & Export (Group) Corporation (CNPIEC) is the largest and most highly-developed cultural products import and export group in China. Its product structure incorporates core businesses of import of publications, export of publications, conferences and exhibitions in China and abroad, overseas publishing, global distribution and other international trade businesses.

As the largest importer of publications into China, CNPIEC has over 10,000 domestic clients and accounts and over 60% of the domestic market for imported publications. CNPIEC enjoys exclusive rights for the import of audio-visual goods and products, and the retail of foreign periodicals in high profile venues. Based on its excellent brand reputation, CNPIEC has become the sole partner in the newsstand projects in 2008 Olympics Games, the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games, and it's also an "appointed supplier" for the United Nations' book procurement. CNPIEC’s Publications Bonded Warehouse is the first bonded warehouse exclusively for stocking imported publications in China.

CNPIEC is striving to create China's largest service platform for media information and materials on education, science, culture, health, economy, national defence and military services, and to turn CNPIEC Online into an internationally-leading, domestically-unrivalled platform for information services. 

About pub2web

The pub2web platform is a customized, multi-content publications portal—delivering all the functionality needed to support evolving online strategies and to satisfy the user base, however diverse their needs. Customers benefit from proven, regularly-updated technology while also maintaining full control of their brand, their content and their user relationships. It allows customers to help their users to explore all their content – whatever its format – with progressive browsing options driven by pub2web’s award-winning data storage and modelling.

 Visit www.publishingtechnology.com, follow on Twitter @publishingtech, or connect on LinkedIn.

 Distributed on behalf of Publishing Technology by NeonDrum news distribution service (http://www.neondrum.com)