SIEL 2024: More than 1.1 million books sold
Hibapress
The Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication, Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, indicated Monday in Rabat that more than 1,100,000 books were sold during the 29th International Publishing and Book Fair (SIEL-2024 ), organized from May 9 to 19 in the capital of the Kingdom.
In response to an oral question in the House of Representatives on the results of the Salon, Mr. Bensaid added that the turnover achieved during this edition exceeded 120 million dirhams, stressing that this figure “important for publishers and the authors” reflects the interest shown by Moroccans in books and reading, in the era of technology and artificial intelligence.
He recalled, in this sense, that the number of visitors to SIEL exceeded 316,000, an increase of 32% compared to the previous edition, noting that since its organization in Rabat, the Show adopted for the first time techniques developed for counting visitors.
Furthermore, Mr. Bensaid affirmed that the 29th SIEL experienced significant success on several levels, notably in terms of number of visitors, quality of conferences and scientific meetings, as well as turnover.
In response to another question around the “Problem of the closure of youth centers in certain cities and provinces of the Kingdom”, the minister stressed that his department is working to achieve an adequate solution to this problem, noting that considerable efforts have been deployed in this sense through the recruitment of administrative executives according to the budgetary positions devoted to the sector.
The ministry partnered with local authorities and civil society organizations to provide officials to closed youth centers, he said, noting that during the current government’s term, the number of youth centers closed youth was reduced from 146 to 75.
The ministry has set up a special application to ensure daily monitoring of youth centers in order to find solutions for closed structures, while developing animation programs within these houses, particularly with regard to economic inclusion of young people through training workshops in several areas, including small business creation.
According to data presented by Mr. Bensaid, the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication has 762 youth centers spread across the different regions and provinces of the Kingdom, of which 57% are in cities and 43% in rural areas. rural.
