Hanoi (VNA) - Forseveral months now, the market for textbooks, reference books and study kitshas been abuzz with activity as the new school year approaches.

However, this has also kept concerned agencies busy raiding andseizing illegally printed copies of the above-mentioned materials.

The Vietnam Education Publishing House said its investigationdepartment has busted several cases of illegal printing in the last few months.

In Hanoi, Hai Anh Co Ltd. was found to have illegally printed30,000 English textbooks; Thien Phu Printing Factory and Hai Chien PackagingPrinting Company were discovered to illegally possess a large amount of piratedcopies of English textbooks.

In the central region, the department detected illegally-printedprimary school textbooks in Quang Ngai province and large volumes of secondaryschool English textbooks in Da Nang city and Khanh Hoa province. More than3,000 copies of textbooks, mainly in English, were collected in Dak Lak.

Illegal printing of textbooks isn’t something new, it has been anopen secret for many years, something that has never stopped.

Authors, publishers and printing houses have pleaded for thispractice to stop, but pirated books still exist despite repeated raids andfines.

No official figures are available about the damage caused, butpublishers estimate losses caused by the contraband book market at severalbillions of  VND every year.

[Over 100 million textbo⛄oks printed for school year]

Previously, the activity was confined to new books andbestsellers, but now, all curricula, textbooks, reference books and Englishbooks are being printed illegally.

Typically printers involved in book piracy are unable to presentcontracts or have printed copies far in excess of the license.

State management offices have set up multiple inspection teams todeal with the problem, but these have not yielded expected results, leavinglicensed publishers still struggling to deal with the problem of pirated books.

Vu Ba Khanh, General Director of Hanoi Education Development andInvestment Company under the Vietnam Education Publishing House, said the mosteffective anti-illegal printing solution was the use of anti-counterfeitstamps.

Many fake books of his company were discovered in the marketthanks to anti-counterfeit stamps, he said.

However, observers said anti-counterfeit stamps are also faked,and consumers would find it difficult to tell between genuine and fake books.This, in turn, has affected the reputation of local publishers and theirinternational co-operation, especially involving English books, with piracyaffecting the copyrighted copies of foreign partners.

Khanh said that to stop the sale of pirated books, authoritiesneed to check all steps closely, from the granting of licenses to the releaseof books. Offices failing in their duty should be held to account, and in caseswhere serious damage is caused, offenders must be prosecuted.

Besides, readers themselves should boycott pirated copies by buyingbooks from reputable bookstores, he added.

Illegal printing and trading in pirated books not only harm thepublishers but also readers, experts say, explaining that pirated copies cancarry incorrect information, and use bad-quality paper and ink, which can hurtstudents.

 Le Van Son, an official with Hanoi’s market management team,said illegal printing of textbooks was a painful and alarming situation.

He said that the education sector and the market managementdepartment have jointly detected and dealt with many cases, imposing themaximum mandated fine of 30 million VND.

While textbook smugglers can make billions of VND in profit everyyear, they are ready to pay fines and return to their illegal business,deploying even more sophisticated tricks, he said.

Nguyen Trong Khanh, Deputy Director of the city’s Information andCommunications Department, said that anti-smuggling cooperation between theconcerned departments was not forged in a stable, regular, timely manner.

He reiterated that students will suffer if pirated books with badquality materials are used.-VNA