The fair was a big draw last year.

The most awaited literary carnival of the city, the Riyadh International Book Fair, which serves as a great networking platform for publishers, writers, scholars and academic institutions and one of the most important book fairs in the Middle East, opened registration Sunday for its upcoming edition.

The book fair will kick off on March 9, 2016 under the auspices of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman.

“All publishing houses and other stakeholders who wish to participate in the Riyadh International Book Fair 2016, be it from inside the Kingdom or international participants, and want to book their exhibition site, can apply for registration with effect from Dec. 6,” a Ministry of Culture and Information spokesman said.

The registration process will close on Feb. 6.

Commenting on preparations and arrangements, Saud Al-Hazmi, general supervisor for the book fair and exhibition at the Ministry of Information and Culture, said that the ministry has completed its preparations for the annual international cultural event.

He pointed out that the ministry each year seeks to further develop its programs in the exhibition by introducing new elements of modern technical aspects in order to make it easier for publishers to participate and ultimately help make the fair a huge success.

Moreover, the effort is to allow a greater number of applicants to participate and serve visitors with ease and flexibility, he underlined.

The general supervisor of the exhibition also urged publishing houses to follow the terms and dates of registration set by the ministry in order to meet the deadline.

The book fair features hundreds of national and international publishing houses, distributors and retail booksellers to facilitate and promote exchanges between professionals whose jobs depend on books and reading, and publishers.

The exhibition at the book fair last year accommodated more than 300,000 titles, including several best-selling books from about 1,000 publishing houses from more than 30 countries, represented by 400 exhibitors within the Kingdom and more than 1,000 foreign exhibitors.

The exhibitors at the book fair put on display a large number of books on Islam, Arab culture, history, medicine, law, science and technology, mass media and communications, besides biographical accounts, fiction and novels available in languages including Arabic, English, French, Turkish, Urdu and Spanish.

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