Algeria books’ imports reach $55 million in 2015

Algeria has over 5,000 real publishers, out of 800 publication companies, that are active since 2003, I.e. after the emergence of Algeria year in France, and other events for which the state allocated certain budgets to support publication, Culture Minister, Azzedine Mihoubi, estimated, during his response to the MPs at the Nation’s Council, on the sidelines of the session to vote for the last Book Law.

Mihoubi recognized that a large part of the publishers are only mediators between the writer and the culture event.

Culture Minister’s statement confirmed that the policy of support that was used by Culture Ministry did not succeed in creating a strong publication sector in Algeria, and its mission was only limited, during these years, in distributing money on publishers who, in their turn, give them to writers to realize their works that are sold to the state.

This policy contributed, since years in “creating curious publishers who wait only for the Ministry’s support to consume it, then they disappear from the scene”, as Baghdadi Mohamed, Manager of Baghdadi Works, told Echorouk that the Ministry’s policy damaged the Algerian book more than it served it, calling to the need to review the way of supporting and promoting the book with other ways, like supporting the paper’s price, and taxation on raw materials that are imported from abroad, or supporting libraries and distribution cells, especially in the southern regions.

Customs’ statistics show that Algeria imported, during the first four months of 2015 over $55 million of books that are mostly dictionaries and Wikipedia from France, which remains Algeria’s first source in such kind of books, a value that noticed a decline compared to what was imported last year ($61 million), and in 2013 ($80 million) of books.