Many diplomats, including the ambassadors of France, Austria and Indonesia, visited the fair.
Two seminars were organized on the sidelines of the book fair yesterday. The first was on children’s channels delivered by Ashraf Younes and Nada Farran, while the second was on youth movies by Tawfiq Al-Zaidi, Bejad Al-Naqel and Alaa Al-Maktoum.
School students were also able to visit the exhibition.
There was great appreciation for the extensive participation of Egyptian authors and around 130 publishing houses who experienced high sales at the fair.
The Egyptians said the exhibition is one of the most important in the Arab world in terms of organization and the number of visitors, and said facilities provided to them by the Ministry of Culture and Information contributed to the overwhelming response of visitors from around the Arab world.
Author Mohammed Nujaimi signed contracts with publishing houses for two of his books.
The first book was “Artificial Insemination between Halal and Haram: an Islamic doctrinal comparative study", and the second titled “Abortion: Provisions and Limits of Islamic Shariah and Man-Made Laws, a comparative study.”
Meanwhile, visitors to the book fair praised the tireless efforts made by the security forces to maintain security at all entrances to the exhibition. It showed a large number of visitors at the fair, while the women security personnel were regulating the number of visitors through access control for security reasons.
Safety measures included confiscating sharp objects.
Approximately 25 women security guards manned the inspection machines for female visitors.
Visitors also expressed their satisfaction at the variety of books offered for sale.
During his visit to the fair on Thursday, Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal chided those who sought to run down the exhibition, which was a national cultural event.
He said viewing a cultural event through the prism of distortion would result in preventing the growth and development, progress and prosperity of the Saudi human thought. He made this observation during his visit to the exhibition.
He also said: “I congratulate the leadership at this level of civilization which I saw on the faces of visitors from the joy of walking around and soaking up various types of knowledge, science and culture.”
