Overview

• Hong Kong is a regional publishing centre, backed by a highly developed printing industry. Freedom of expression and a liberal attitude towards the press are important factors attracting a concentration of prestigious international publications in Hong Kong.
  
  
• Many major international publishers of newspapers, magazines and books have their Asian headquarters here.
  
  
• Hong Kong was the US's sixth largest supplier, the Chinese mainland's third largest supplier and Taiwan's sixth largest supplier of imported books and newspapers in 2006.
  
  
• The publishing industry benefits from Hong Kong's excellent communications network. For example, satellite communications enable international publishers to transmit texts and high-quality images to Hong Kong for producing their Asian editions.
  

Industry Data

• Newspapers and magazines: Hong Kong is well served by a great variety of newspapers and magazines, in Chinese, English and other languages; and by both local and international publishers. A large number of international publishers use Hong Kong as the base to perform some or all of the functions of local market adaptations, printing, advertising sales and subscription.
  
  
• Books: these include mass market books as well as textbooks, reference books and specialist books by both local and international publishers.
  
  
• Non-book publications: this category mainly includes the fast growing sector of electronic publishing such as multimedia CD-ROMs and on-line publishing.
  

Service Providers

Newspaper and magazine publishers

At the end of 2005, there were 49 newspapers and 722 periodicals (including a number of electronic newspapers) in Hong Kong. Of the newspapers, 23 were Chinese, 13 English, 8 bilingual and 5 in Japanese.

Many international media organisations have offices in Hong Kong, which is also the base for a number of regional publications. For example, Hong Kong is the regional base for the Far Eastern Economic Review. The Wall Street Journal Asia, The Financial Times, USA Today International, International Herald Tribune and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun are also printed here.

Some specialist publishers produce trade publications either for local or international circulation. Many of them are also organisers of trade shows.

Book publishers

International book publishers operating in Hong Kong include Oxford University Press, Longman, Readers' Digest and Macmillan. These companies manage the production, marketing, and distribution of books for the Hong Kong market and export to other sister companies around the world.

In recent years, more foreign titles are being translated into Chinese. They include management, personal finance and self-improvement books as well as cartoons and popular novels, especially those which have been adapted to cinematic or TV screens.

Non-book publishers

CD-Rom publishing is an area of increasing interest. Many publishers also release their titles in CD-Rom form for easy storage, search and retrieval. Multimedia CD-Rom titles mainly belong to the educational and reference categories.

On-line publishing is becoming more popular. An increasing number of major magazines, regional newspapers, local newspapers and wire services are going on-line. There are also many pure Internet publishers.


Exports

Hong Kong's printing exports amounted to US$685 million in the first five months of 2007, up 13% from the same period in 2006. The US, UK and the Chinese mainland markets together absorbed two-thirds of Hong Kong’s total printing exports.

Hong Kong is a major centre for Chinese-language publications. Some local Chinese newspapers and magazines are also distributed in Taiwan, the Chinese mainland and overseas communities where there are significant Chinese population.


Industry Development and Market Outlook

Mainland market opening measures after WTO accession are restricted to the distribution of publications. The publishing and importation of publications in China is still off-limit to foreign companies. Hong Kong companies' participation is now mainly focused on entering the market through copyright trade and establishing ties with mainland publishing companies in the importation and distribution fields. The huge potential of the Chinese mainland market is the focus of the world. Hong Kong publishers are at an advantageous position to market China studies to the world. There are growing opportunities for publishers to market trade journals to Western companies which want to establish or expand their presence in China.