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Solemn opening ceremony of 1st Baku International Book Exhibition and Fair held in Azerbaijanâ€™s capital

10 September 2009 11:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Ulkar Gasimova â€“ APA. The solemn opening ceremony of the 1st Baku International Book Exhibition and Fair has been held in the Museum Center today, APA reports. Heads, employees of publishing houses were welcomed with the performance of the works by Azerbaijani classic composers. Deputy Prime Minister Elchin Efendiyev spoke about the importance of the event. Efendiyev expressed his confidence that the event will make great contributions to Azerbaijani literature and wished success to the participants of the festival.

Culture and Tourism Minister Abulfas Garayev said the International Book Exhibition and Fair was a great contribution for Azerbaijani people.
â€œWe are pleased that the interest in the exhibition was more than we had expected. You know that publishing houses of 23 countries participate in the exhibition. We plan to hold the International Book Exhibition every two years. Book is important for the literacy of the youth. Azerbaijan is represented in five-six international book exhibitions every year,â€ he said.

The Minister noted that the aim of the festival is to facilitate promotion of Azerbaijanâ€™s typographic art in the world market.
â€œIt also aims to attract the attention of the world community to Azerbaijanâ€™s typographic art, increase the interest in book. As a result of it, the number of readers in our libraries and love for book will increase,â€ he said.

Garayev said different events, presentations, meetings and signing ceremonies would be held within the three-day 1st Baku International Book Exhibition. â€œThe government meets all expenditures for the first time. You know usually every participant country pays its expenditures in such exhibitions. But we refused to do so. â€œProbably it will develop so for several next years and become a tradition, which will attract the interests of other countriesâ€. The Minister of Culture and Tourism said books with more than 10 million circulations have been published since the order about using of Roman types in book publication.

Following the opening ceremony, Vice Prime Minister Elchin Efendiyev, Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Garayev, Turkish ambassador to Azerbaijan Hulusi Kilic and other ambassadors, guests, as well as well-known writers looked at the book exhibition organized at the Museum Center. The foreign publishing houses presented books to the guests.

The publishing houses of U.S., Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and other countries joined the exhibition, which will last until September 12. The book presentations, meetings with the Azerbaijani and foreign writers, ceremony of writersâ€™ autograph notes, as well as talks about cooperation between the foreign and local publishers will be held at the conference halls of the Museum Center within the fair-exhibition. The event was organized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The exhibition will create opportunity for the demonstration, sale of the books published in recent years, talks and agreements between the writers and publishers.