Guangdong Provincial Publishing Group was established in December 1999, which is the first publishing group that was identified by the General Administration of Press and Publication as a pioneer unit of publishing reform of the country. In 2003, the Group was identified as a pioneer unit in the first batch of cultural system reform pioneer units of the country and one of the seven leading enterprises of cultural industries in Guangdong. In February 2004, Guangdong Press and Publication Bureau transferred the managerial authority of 13 enterprises and public institutions to the Group; it also allocated the state share of Guangdong Xinhua Distribution Group Ltd. as state-owned estate authorized by the government to the Group. These effectively promoted the strategic restructuring of the Group. In August of the same year, the provincial government allowed the Group thoroughly transform into an enterprise and authorized it to operate the state-owned estate. In 2005, the Group took the lead in finishing the attached publishing houses’ transforming into enterprises in the country.
The Group has the following as its main business: the editing, publication, production, printing, copying and distribution of books, journals, audio-visual products, electronic publications and Internet publications, material trade in distribution and publication, import and export trade and so on. Is has 18 subsidiaries and 1 branch. In 2007, the Group published over 4000 kinds of books and nearly 500 audio-visual electronic publications with a sales revenue of 3 billion yuan, and its profits and taxes reaching 240 million yuan; its total assets at the end of the year are 4.2 billion yuan, and its net assets are 2.7 billion yuan.
The Group has eight publishing houses, including Guangdong People’s Publishing House, Guangdong Education Publishing House, Guangdong Science and Technology Press, Flower City Publishing House, New Century Publishing House, Guangdong Economy Publishing House, Guangdong Petrel Electronic & Audio-Visual Publishing House and Guangdong Language & Audio-Visual Publishing Company. They respectively have the following as their main fields of publication: books of social science, education, science and technology, literature, children and business administration, and audio-visual & electronic publications of public education as well as language learning. All along, the Group has adopted its management concept of “knowledge radical, readers first”, editing and publishing a large number of excellent works of both social and economic benefits. In 2006, in the selection of the first Excellent Chinese Publications (Books) Awards, two books of the Group, The History of Chinese and Foreign Educational Exchanges and A Collection of Pictures on China’s Major Natural Disasters and Society were officially awarded. In 2007, The Diary of a Head Nurse was awarded the Excellent Works of the 10th National “Five No. 1 Projects”; Competitive Economics won the prize of the first Chinese Publication Government Awards (Books). Recently, the Group has organized a series of key publication projects in which a lot of books are well received by the society, such as Lingnan Traditional Chinese Medicine Library, Sea Economy of China South Sea Series, Science, Technology and Society Series, Collected Works of Qin Mu, Chinese Traditional Ethos and Culture Series, The History of Chinese Families, The History of Neo-Confucianism in the Qing Dynasty, and The Manuscripts of the Qing Dynasty. The Group has also published a quantity of best-sellers that are very popular with readers. For instance, Handbook on Human Body has been sold over 1 million copies, The Best of Chinese Moral Wisdoms over 300 thousand copies, Volume One of Reminiscences of Wang Meng over 200 thousand copies, Learn the Body Condition through Hands about 120 thousand copies etc.
According to the new situation of the elementary education curriculum reform, the Group put forward the concept of “leading the textbooks’ production with fine works consciousness” to run the business, kept on developing the business of textbooks’ film-renting and authorizing, and took an active part in organizing the project-applying, compiling and promoting of the new curriculum standard textbooks developed by the Group (called “new textbooks in Guangdong edition” in the following). In 2006, the Group got the bid in the first bid-inviting and bid-entering of textbooks’ publication and distribution of primary school and middle school in Guangdong. In 2007, the Group became the unified supplier of textbooks free for the rural areas’ students during their compulsory education period in Guangdong Province. Up till now, the elementary textbooks developed or authorized by the Group account for over 75% of the market share in the province. The amount and overall level of new textbooks in Guangdong edition ranked in the leading position of the country, with a high market share rate not only in Guangdong but also all over the country. It has become a symbolized product of constructing Guangdong into a province of culture. In 2007, the new textbooks in Guangdong edition were used in 24 provinces in the country, with a total number of 20 million copies not including Guangdong.
The group has 18 kinds of journals. Among them, Huacheng and Suibi are well-known old brand literary journals; With its keen antennae and unique planning ideas, New Weekly, known as “one of China’s most pioneering weeklies of current affairs and life”, was awarded one of “the Top Ten Typical Creative Media” in the 2nd China’s Creative Media Annual Meeting and “China’s Top 100 Creative Industries” in 2007; As fashionable journals that lead the trend of fashion life, Hope and Chic both entered the “Phalanx of China’s Double Benefit (social benefit and economic benefit) Periodicals”. In addition, a batch of newspapers and periodicals with strong developing momentum, such as Collections·Auction, Teenagers Digest, Tips for Health and others, are well received by business circles and readers.
The Group also has a printing company, a compact disc reproduction company and a material trade company: Guangdong Xinhua Printing Co. Ltd., composed of Guangdong Xinhua Printing Factory and Guangdong Guangcai Printing Co. Ltd. after their merging and reconstruction, is one of the large-scale printing enterprises in Pearl River Delta Area mainly printing books and journals; Guangdong Weiya Photoelectricity Co. Ltd. is one of the compact disc production bases in the south of China; Guangdong Publication and Printing Material Co. Ltd. is one of the large-scale professional enterprises dealing with publication and printing material in South China with a complete assortment of goods.
The Group also sets foot in business fields such as import and export of publication, education, traveling industry, agency for studying abroad and immigration, real estate, property management etc. The Group is now planning to build Guangdong Digital Culture City in Dongpu of Guangzhou, trying to turn it into a national base of digital publication, an exhibition stage for domestic and foreign media industry, and a new sight of culture that could serve as a symbol of Guangzhou.
As one of the main forces of Guangdong’s cultural industry, the Group will focus on the following in the next phase with a strategic standpoint as a supplier: actively taking part in carrying out the work of stock system reform and going public; promoting the property integration and chain operation of Xinhua Bookstores all over the province; trying to run business beyond region and media boundaries; forming a new industry chain composed of creativity, production, propagation and service; constructing a large-scale publication and media group with publication as main business while setting foot in various kinds of media as well, with state-owned economy as main body while with various economic composition as well, with intensive operation as its feature and with great capabilities of creativity. In this way, the Group is trying its best to become a leader of the national publication market, a strategic investor of the industry as well as a pioneer of the publication industry of China. |