TIBE 2003

The 11th Taipei International Book Exhibition wrapped up an event-packed week on February 16 this year at three separate venues across Taipei. The show kicked off on February 11th with an opening address by President Chen Shuibian, who noted TIBE's role as a focal point for the global publishing industry. A total of 925 publishers reserved 2,092 booths for the 2003 show, including 414 publishers from Taiwan and 511 from nearly 50 other countries. Exhibits were displayed in six topical areas: international exhibitions, children's books, ebooks, comic books, general books, and spiritual and religious books. There were also two new activities added to this year's program on international publishing and international copyrights. At the first event, speakers Peter Mayer, publisher of the U.S.-based Overlook Press, Jamie Byng, publisher of Britain's Canongate Publishing, Masao Kase, Chairman of Soshisha of Japan, Gunter Berg, publisher of Suhrkamp Verlag of Germany, and Dale Hollis Hoiberg, editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica shared their experience in developing successful small publishing companies.