IPA President Shares IPA’s Vision With Turkish Publishers For Recovery Of Pandemic-affected Book Industry

ISTANBUL, (Pakistan Point News - 27th Jul, 2021) Bodour Al Qasimi, President of the International Publishers Association (IPA), has welcomed the Turkish Publishers Association’s (TPA) decision to organise the International Istanbul Book Fair in November 2021, saying that the return to in-person events indicates that the world of publishing is adapting to the realities of the new normal and gearing up to regain its full potential.

These remarks from Al Qasimi came during a meeting with the TPA in Istanbul, Turkey. The meeting was held in the presence of the TPA President, Kenan Kocaturk, members of the association and prominent local publishers.

Al Qasimi stated that IPA was focusing on establishing effective communication with publishers’ associations worldwide, to discuss the developmental challenges facing businesses in the pandemic-affected economic climate, and help them design agile business models to ensure their growth and sustainability.

The IPA President emphasised that COVID-19 has offered the industry an opportunity to re-evaluate the current business models and replace them with more agile ones, with a strong focus on pushing the agenda of digital publishing. Publishers who had expanded their business models to include digital offerings were able to rebound quickly.

The IPA has been working closely with its members to assess any gaps in the knowledge needed to transform their businesses to adapt to both the current circumstances and the post-pandemic era. Al Qasimi added that the upcoming IPA academy, to be launched later this year, would seek to provide publishers around the world with a curated list of courses aimed at meeting the urgent necessity for capacity building and upskilling for publishers and introduce them to the tools needed to re-design and revitalise their business models.

Al Qasimi took the opportunity to congratulate the TPA on its tireless work in defending the freedom to publish principle, one of the IPA’s two Primary objectives, and the protection of copyright. The TPA shares its findings on the freedom to publish both in Turkey and worldwide in an annual report, and its efforts recently culminated in the organising of the 2020 Freedom of Thought and Expression Awards, which were held as an online ceremony in January this year.

Al Qasimi’s visit to Turkey follows a series of meetings with publishers’ associations in Egypt, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Georgia earlier this year.