From: Mike Groth <[log in to unmask]>:
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 14:35:35 +0000

*** apologies for cross-posting ***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 20, 2012

Publishing Technology and CNPIEC launch largest digital gateway in China

Oxford, 20 April 2012 - Publishing Technology and CNPIEC, the China
National Publications Import and Export Corporation, unveiled the
Digital Gateway, the most significant digital publishing platform ever
launched for Chinese libraries, in a special ceremony at the London
Book Fair Tuesday.

The digital portal has been developed by Publishing Technology, the
largest industry provider of software and services, on the company’s
flagship online publishing platform, pub2web, and is managed by
CNPIEC, the largest and most highly-developed publication import and
export group in China. With semantically enriched content and
interfaces in English and Mandarin, the site directly links
international publishers to over 10,000 of CNPIEC’s public and
academic member libraries and potentially millions of new users.

Through the Digital Gateway, international publishers will be able to
extend their reach into a burgeoning, untapped market, attracting new
audiences to digest their content and opening up new revenue potential
in the process. CNPIEC is the largest company fully licensed by the
Chinese government to import publications, and the new site, in-line
with the government’s long term digital publishing plans, will help
improve online access and discoverability of content in Chinese
libraries.

With many publishers and aggregators already showing great interest in
negotiating partnerships with CNPIEC, Publishing Technology and CNPIEC
predict that in the next two years over a million different content
sources will be live and accessible on the site.

Mrs Wei Wu, Deputy President of CNPIEC, commented: “The Digital
Gateway is a significant new development in the digitisation of
Chinese libraries and a refreshing new distribution channel for
overseas publishers. By taking advantage of the current library market
coverage of CNPIEC and having their content hosted on a leading
digital technology, publishers from all over the world will be able to
extend visibility and discoverability of their content to a new
growing market.”

George Lossius, CEO at Publishing Technology, stated: “These are
exciting times to be working in China. The academic sector is booming,
the government is investing heavily in the country’s educational
infrastructure, and the appetite for Western content in China is now
greater than ever. Yet at the same time, the digital publishing
landscape is still in its infancy.”

“We are extremely proud to be playing such an important role in the
development of Chinese library digitisation and opening up new avenues
of collaboration on content and culture that never existed before. The
Digital Gateway is set to dramatically shake-up content consumption in
China and we are extremely excited to offer publishers from around the
world the unique opportunity to this resource, make their content go
further and enjoy its lucrative benefits.” he concluded.

- ENDS -

Publishing Technology plc:

Publishing Technology’s products and services include advance,
ingentaconnect, VISTA, author2reader, pub2web, ICS and PCG. The
Publishing Technology group enables publishers to focus on their core
competences by providing a single, trusted partner for both technology
requirements and business development services. It is one of the
largest providers of software and services for the publishing
industry, servicing eight out of ten of the world's largest
publishers. The group’s proposition uniquely spans front and back
office systems – complemented by a range of business development
services – to provide the industry's only end-to-end suite of software
specifically designed to support the publishing process. Capabilities
cover editorial & production, product information, billing &
fulfilment, content conversion & hosting, website development,
marketing programs, information commerce, customer relationship
management, rights & royalties and business intelligence. All
application modules can be configured independently to meet specific
publishers' needs and to allow flexible integration with existing
systems. Associated sales and marketing services include consultancy
and research, sales representation and telemarketing. The company is
listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange and has offices
in the UK, US, Brazil, India, China and Australia.

CNPIEC:

China National Publications Import & Export (Group) Corporation
(CNPIEC) is the largest and most highly-developed cultural products
import and export group in China. Its product structure incorporates
core businesses of import of publications, export of publications,
conferences and exhibitions in China and abroad, overseas publishing,
global distribution and other international trade businesses.

As the largest importer of publications into China, CNPIEC has over
10,000 domestic clients and accounts and over 60% of the domestic
market for imported publications. CNPIEC enjoys exclusive rights for
the import of audio-visual goods and products, and the retail of
foreign periodicals in  high profile venues. Based on its excellent
brand reputation, CNPIEC has become the sole partner in the newsstand
projects in 2008 Olympics Games, the 2010 Shanghai  World Expo and
Guangzhou 2010 Asian Games, and it's also an "appointed supplier" for
the United Nations' book procurement. CNPIEC’s Publications Bonded
Warehouse is the first bonded warehouse exclusively for stocking
imported publications in China.

CNPIEC is striving to create China's largest service platform for
media information and materials on education, science, culture,
health, economy, national defence and military services, and to turn
CNPIEC Online into an internationally-leading, domestically-unrivalled
platform for information services.

About pub2web

The pub2web platform is a customized, multi-content publications
portal—delivering all the functionality needed to support evolving
online strategies and to satisfy the user base, however diverse their
needs. Customers benefit from proven, regularly-updated technology
while also maintaining full control of their brand, their content and
their user relationships. It allows customers to help their users to
explore all their content – whatever its format – with progressive
browsing options driven by pub2web’s award-winning data storage and
modelling.

Visit www.publishingtechnology.com, follow on Twitter @publishingtech,
or connect on LinkedIn.

Contact:

MIKE GROTH
Marketing Manager
Publishing Technology plc
[log in to unmask]
www.publishingtechnology.com

875 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA