PUBLISHING TECHNOLOGY’S CHINA JOINT VENTURE TO SIGN LANDMARK DEAL

Contract with one of China’s most renowned publishing houses Zhonghua Book Company

Publishing Technology plc, the AIM quoted leading provider of world-class software and services to the global publishing industry, is pleased to announce that its joint venture, Publishing Technology China, has signed an agreement with the Zhonghua Book Company, one of the most prestigious trade and academic publishing houses in China.

Using its pub2web platform, Publishing Technology will build a digital publishing platform and management system for the Zhonghua Book Company to house its complete collection of classic Chinese works. The platform will be heavily customised to carry ancient Chinese text, which is displayed and read vertically, and has long been viewed as a significant challenge in this specialist area since digital publishing has become a necessity.

Founded in 1912, the Zhonghua Book Company publishes titles in the humanities sectors, specialising in ancient Chinese texts. As part of a Government-backed project, the partnership will see its collection of ancient Chinese works from the past 3000 years, including supplementary notes and information provided by subject-matter experts, made available to institutions around the world.

The pub2web platform, a custom hosting solution, is the result of a multi-million dollar research and development program and has been built using a powerful combination of industry standard architecture and semantic web technologies to showcase and connect publishers’ content, regardless of format or type. Among the leading global organisations that use pub2web are the UN and the OECD.

This partnership is the latest high profile name in the Chinese publishing industry to implement Publishing Technology’s global content solutions and is further testament to the strong demand internationally and, in particular, in China for Publishing Technology’s software. The Group’s China joint venture was established in 2011 and is currently running 22 live contracts, for both pub2web and advance;turnover at the joint venture reached £2m in the first half of the financial year.

Publishing Technology’s other clients in China include leading domestic publishers such as China Law Press and China Publishing Group, the country’s largest publisher and owner of CNPIEC (China National Publications Import and Export Corporation), which controls the majority of content moving in and out of China.

Notably, at the 2013 Beijing International Book Fair, Publishing Technology, in partnership with CNPIEC, announced the launch of the CNP eReading platform. This innovative website is designed to give international academic publishers access to this growing market, enabling them to reach new audiences and open up new revenue potential by showcasing their journals and ebooks to over 10,000 of CNPIEC’s public and academic member libraries and millions of new users. Following its launch last year, Publishing Technology China was awarded the International Book Industry Technology Supplier Award as a celebration of its success at this year’s London Book Fair in April.

Publishing Technology CEO, Michael Cairns, and the President of Zhonghua Book Company, Jun Xu, will sign the contract together in a special signing ceremony on the opening day of the 2014 Beijing International Book Fair.

As part of his trip to China Michael will visit the growing number of clients Publishing Technology is working with as well as other key publishers.

Publishing Technology represents seven of the top ten global publishing groups and current clients include over 400 trade and scholarly publishers, including HarperCollins, McGraw-Hill, Macmillan, Elsevier, Springer, Sage, Oxford University Press, BMJ Group, Brill, United Nations, American Institute of Physics, American Society for Microbiology, BioOne and Bloomsbury Publishing.

Michael Cairns, CEO of Publishing Technology plc, commented:

“This is a landmark contract for Publishing Technology in China. Zhonghua Book Company is one of the most prestigious trade and academic publishing houses in the country and is a strong endorsement of the software products we have invested millions in developing. The company is great addition to our roster of blue-chip clients, both in China and internationally. Our China joint venture is one of the most exciting areas of our business and a flagship for our international expansion, which we expect to accelerate over the next few years and contribute strongly to future revenues and profitability.”

Jun Xu, President of Zhonghua Book Company, commented:

“Publishing Technology is an excellent partner for our business to build the digital publishing platform and management system, which is essential for any modern publishing business and that we need to capitalise on the strong growth in demand for online books and content. The company has built up an excellent understanding of the Chinese publishing market and has the world-class software and high-quality support and service skills to deliver not only a highly sophisticated platform but one that is completely tailored to our specific needs.”