The 12th Karachi International Book Fair (KIBF), which is going to be commenced from December 15, 2016 at Karachi Expo, will host 32 exhibitors from 10 countries. This was stated by Convenor 12th KIBF, Owais Mirza Jamil and Aziz Khalid, Chairman of Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association while speaking at a press conference held at a local hotel here.
A five-day 12th KIBF-2016, which is being organised by Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association, will be inaugurated by Irfan Siddiqui, Advisor to Prime Minister on National History & Literary Heritage Division whereas the Minister for Literacy and Education, Sindh Jam Mehtab Dahar will be the Guest of Honour.
Karachi International Book Fair is now Pakistan's largest consumer fair. The event brings many publishing and distribution houses together with domestic and international publishers, booksellers, librarians and institutional customers. Publishers from Iran, India, Turkey, Singapore, China, Malaysia, England, UAE and other countries are attending the international event, they said.
They expressed their gratitude to the publishers and booksellers for their participation in the fair and hoped to have record breaking number of visitors in the 12th Karachi International Book Fair. They said that the book fair would be held in the hall No 1, 2 and 3 at Karachi Expo Centre and all genres of books on all topics would be displayed over 330 stalls for five days from December 15-19, 2017.
Ejaz Shah, Advisor-Business Development-KIBF, stressed that this edition would be remarkable and distinctive as efforts were being made to establish effective working relationship with key International Book Fairs leading towards an exchange of professional expertise for highlighting the importance of Book Fairs at national and international level. He noted that the Vice-president of Frankfurt International Book Fair, Ms Claudia Kaiser will be visiting the KIBF "Fairs are not only books exhibit any more, international book fairs are very important forums not only for publishers but also for the government agencies/missions as an effective tool for 'Diplomacy', he added.