Vietnam gears towards national book strategy

Hanoi (VNA) – The birth of Vietnam Book Day demonstrates the timely attention as well as the vision of the Party and Government to promote the reading culture in Vietnam, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung has said. 

After five years of implementing the Prime Minister’s decision on Vietnam Book Day, the number and quality of publications have increased (Photo: VNA)

According to an international survey in 2016, only 30 percent of the Vietnamese population read books regularly, 26 percent do not read and 44 percent read occasionally.

Each Vietnamese owns 4.2 new books each year but 2.3 of them are textbooks. Therefore, each person has only two new books per year, among the lowest levels in the world, said Hung, who is also deputy head of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Information and Education.

The official uncovered the numbers at a national conference in Hanoi on April 18 reviewing the five-year implementation of the Prime Minister’s decision on Vietnam Book Day.

Spreading reading culture

The PM signed Decision No. 284/QD-TTg on February 24, 2014 to designate April 21 as Vietnam Book Day, aiming to honour book values, encourage Vietnamese to read books and raise the responsibility of agencies and departments for building and developing the reading culture among the community.

[Vietnam Book Day helps promote reading culture: Deputy Prime Minister]

April 23 marks World Book and Copyright Day. Therefore, the selection of April 21 as Vietnam Book Day reflects Vietnam’s integration into the world in culture and publishing.

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung speaks at the conference. (Photo: VNA)

After five years of implementing the PM’s decision, Vietnam Book Day has been organised nationwide with a larger scale. Activities within the programme have been held in not only major cities and provinces, but also rural, mountainous and remote areas.

Statistics released by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) show that over 66 million Vietnamese students and more than 4.7 officials and teachers participated in Vietnam Book Day. The “Bookcase for prisoners” model is a spotlight during the realisation of the PM’s decision. Currently, 60 bookcases are set up in 54 prisons and three compulsory education centres.

Nearly 160,000 publications, with 1.9 billion copies, were released over the past five years, contributing to improving public knowledge.

Hoang Vinh Bao, MIC Deputy Minister, said the above-said results have proven joint efforts of all agencies and departments and the entire society in developing book reading, writing and preservation movements in the community.

Towards national book strategy

In his remarks, Hung highlighted Vietnam’s traditions of learning fondness and reading.

However, after 30 years of developing the market economy, the rate of readers in the country has gradually dropped, he pointed out, adding that each Vietnamese spends only about 1 hour each week reading books. Meanwhile, higher numbers are recorded in other countries and territories like India (11 hours), Taiwan (5 hours) and Japan (4 hours).

The birth of Vietnam Book Day signals the timely attention and vision of the Party and State to promote the reading culture in Vietnam, which would be seen as the first step towards a national book strategy or a reading encouragement law in the country, he stressed.

Vietnam Book Day has received enthusiastic response from readers (Photo: VNA)

At the conference, the MIC leader set the target of developing the reading culture in the community in the next five years by increasing the number of books owned by each Vietnamese to 4, excluding textbooks, per year and continuing to build and develop private libraries and family bookcases, with 30-40 percent of households having bookcases.

Addressing the event, Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam said over the past five years, ministries, agencies, businesses and the public have actively responded to Vietnam Book Day and movements to promote the reading culture in the community, especially in remote, border and island areas.

He asked relevant agencies to focus on removing obstacles in policies and financial mechanisms facing publishers, creating favourable conditions for book writing, and honouring individuals who have made outstanding contributions in this regard./.