KARACHI: Forty exhibitors representing 17 countries will take part in the 19th Karachi International Book Fair (KIBF), which is set to begin from Thursday (tomorrow) at Expo Centre.

Organisers of the event told a press conference on Tuesday that Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah will inaugurate KIBF 2024 at 1:30pm on Thursday.

Giving details of the event which will continue till Dec 16, KIBF convener Waqar Mateen said this year there will be 330 stalls at the fair, which will be organised at halls 1, 2 and 3 of Expo Centre.

“The good thing is that this year, we have participants from Turkiye and the UK. This means well for us that foreign exhibitors are taking interest in Pakistan and coming over here. That wasn’t the case in the past. They approach us themselves,” he said, adding that in total, there are 40 exhibitors from 17 countries participating in this year’s edition of the fair.

Speaking on the occasion, KIBF chairman Aziz Khalid said the media has supported the event for the past 19 years. “Without a good team, you can’t achieve your goals, and the media is part of that team.”

He said: “When the fair began, we had three objectives. The first was to project a soft image of Pakistan across the world and to tell everyone that Pakistan has nothing to do with terrorism — it’s a country of book lovers. The second was to bring all kinds of books for our children under one roof so that the quality of education could be raised. And the third was that through the fair, our booksellers and publishers get economic benefits in order for them to publish books in a better way.”

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2024