Joint Publishing

Joint Publishing (Chinese: 三聯書店), also called JP Books, is a book store chain and publisher founded at Queen's Road Central in Hong Kong on 18 October 1948. It is one of major book store chains in Hong Kong. Currently a subsidiary company of Sino United Publishing (Holdings) Limited.

Contents

• Subsidiaries
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• References

The book store was merged from three leading publishers and book stores, ? (生活書店), ? (讀書出版社) and ? (新知書店) , at Shanghai in 1948. The newly merged book store (生活書店、讀書出版社、新知書店三聯書店) was closely related to the communist government at that time. Many intellects stayed in Hong Kong and publishing in Hong Kong was its main business. It moved its headquarters to Beijing with many key staff in March 1949. The Hong Kong-based Joint Publishing was its subsidiary.

After the establishment of People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949, the book store located in Hong Kong was mainly responsible for publishing materials from mainland China. While the main branch in mainland China was nationalized. After the coming of Cultural Revolution in mainland China in 1966, the publishing business in mainland China was seriously damaged and the book store in Hong Kong earned its survival by republishing old books.

With several re-locations, it finally settled in current premises in Queen Victoria Street in May 1971 and opened a retail store at the ground floor in July 1974.

The Cultural Revolution ended in 1976 and was soon replaced with economic reform. In 1978 the book store in Hong Kong decided to publish their own books independently and join with other international publishers. It initially targeted in Chinese culture, literature and art and later concentrated Hong Kong topics and social science. Its direction was proved successful and the book store aggressively opened branches in Hong Kong.

Outside Hong Kong, the book store expanded to various cities in mainland China by joint venture, and five stores in North America, specifically in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

In 1988-01, the Hong Kong-based Joint Publishing was registered as a limited liability company called 'Joint Publishing (Hong Kong) Company Limited (Chinese: 三聯書店(香港)有限公司)'.