Some 24 leading Chinese Christian publishers in Hong Kong have promoted Chinese Christian literatures and resources at the biggest Chinese Book Exhibition in Southeast Asia recently.

On March 10-19, "BookFest @Singapore" has taken place in Hall 4-5A at the Singapore Expo, featuring over 100 publishers from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. While many consider it a platform for cultural exchange, the Hong Kong-based Association of Christian Publishers (ACP) has taken the opportunity to introduce Christian culture and education to Southeast Asians by setting up a "Christian Square" at the exhibition.

All 24 Christian exhibitors were some of the leading companies in Hong Kong, including Breakthrough, Hong Kong Bible Society, Logos Publishers, Amazing Grace Books Limited, The Media Evangelism Limited, Hong Kong Fellowship of Evangelical Students, Christian Communication Inc., Tien Dao Christian Media Association, Showers of Blessing Evangelistic Ministry and others.

With the theme "Love" written in Chinese character and the subtitle "reading about the life of love," the "Christian Square" displayed a wide range of Christian products such as Bibles, Bible tools, spiritual books, Sunday School resources, children’s books, movies and CDs as well as gifts.

Many countries in Southeast Asia, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia, there are large Chinese population. Statistics show that most of these Chinese are not Christians, therefore there is a great potential to bring the gospel to them through Chinese Christian literatures.

"In the recent years, Singapore and Malaysia governments have been actively promoting Chinese language education. When the overall reading ability of citizens improves, the use of Chinese language will become more popular," stated ACP. "Singapore and Malaysia will become the fourth biggest Chinese book market following China, Hong Kong and Taiwan."

In the view to "promote Christian culture among the community" and to "spread the truth and serve the church through literature with the assistance of multimedia," ACP develops Chinese Christian market both in China and other countries strategically.

ACP has made similar "Christian Square" in July 2005 at Hong Kong Annual Book Exhibition and at the Taipei International Book Exhibition in February 2006. Both occasions are proved to be very successful.

"China's rapidly growing economy and continued engagement with global trade has created tremendous interest in Chinese language and culture in many countries," said Singapore's Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lee Boon Yang at the opening ceremony, according to the China-based Xinhua news agency. Yang added that the book fair will strengthen the public's understanding of the Chinese language and culture.

The fair will move to Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur in late May this year.