Turkey among ‘top 10’ countries in book diversity

BURDUR

The Turkish Culture Minister Numan Kurtulmuş said on Jan. 12 that Turkey is among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of book diversity.

Speaking during his visit to the southwestern province of Burdur, the minister said the country had fallen behind the desired figures in terms of the number of published books.

He said Turkey is not a country where books are short in supply, adding that around 65,000 various books were printed in the country as of 2017.

“Turkey is not a country that does not have many books. As of 2017, 60,335 books have been printed in Turkey with electronic barcodes. Including the others, 65,000 books of different varieties have been printed. It might not be where we want to be in terms of numbers, but in terms of variety, we are in the top 10 in the world. In this sense, we have quite a variety of books. We need to have campaigns to ensure that people read more,” Kurtulmuş said.

The minister participated in the opening ceremony of the “Bucak Educational Quality Improvement Project” organized in Burdur’s Bucak district.

Emphasizing that the project would be followed closely, Kurtulmuş said that as a ministry, he would make an effort to fulfill the responsibilities upon them.

“A beautiful project is being put forward. It is necessary to pave the way for our children, to create opportunities for them and to prepare a foundation for them to show their talents,” he said.