Brazil’s goverment decision to eliminate taxes on the production, sale, and importation of books will make it possible to reduce prices to make books more accessible to the populace.
This evaluation was made by the coordinator of the National Book and Reading Plan of the Ministry of Culture, Galeno Amorim, in comments on the law sanctioned by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to exempt publishing companies, bookstores, and book distributors from tax payments.
Through this measure the government hopes to reduce the price of literary works by 10% over the next four years.
Galeno also remarked that the measure should imbue the publishing market with optimism and confidence, stimulate new investments by publishing houses, and lead to the opening of new sales locations in the country.
In his view, tax exemption is the first step for encouraging reading in the country.
The price of books is determined by a variety of factors, including the number of copies in an edition.
Galeno judges that the multiplication of public libraries will make for larger editions.
Nowadays, the average edition in Brazil amounts to two thousand copies, 50% less than 20 or 30 years ago. The ideal, he says, are editions that run off at least ten thousand copies.
ABr