The 5th Karachi International Book Fair (KIBF) is being organised by Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association (PPBA) at Expo center from 10 to 14 December. Chairman PPBA for Sindh and Balochistan, Aziz Khalid, stated this at a press briefing held at a local hotel here, on Tuesday.
He said that around 240 booksellers and publishers would exhibit their products for five days. He lauded the efforts being made by the federal and provincial ministries of education to extend the book fair beyond par. He said that Mir Hazar Khan Bajarani, Federal Minister for Education would inaugurate the international event here on Thursday (tomorrow), which is considered a prime event of its type in Pakistan.
In this five-day event, several educational and literary activities, including debate competition, informative and educational talk shows, spelling competition would be conducted, he maintained. Iqbal Saleh Muhammad, convenor, KIBF, Professor Malahat Kaleem Sherwani, president, Pakistan Library Association and Berkatullah, representative of Zong telecom were also present on the occasion.
In his speech, Iqbal underscored the need to encourage this sort of events as education help open mental faculties and added that some eight books are going to be launched, moreover, seminars on different topics are scheduled to be held in the event to promote education and knowledge among students, educationists and book lovers.
He said that the event would entertain around 200 thousand visitors belonging from all walks of life in which internationally reputed publishers from many countries, including USA, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, India and UK would be anticipated to exhibit their publications.
Books at the fair will be varied comprising children's books, textbooks, research, scholarly, scientific, technical and general interest books. The KIBF helps promote reading culture in an extremely effective manner by providing access to inexpensive children's book, specialised technical books and international publications to a wide cross-section of society.