In a ceremony at the 2013 BIBF today, Guinness World Records Limited, the global authority on record breaking achievement and China’s Foreign Languages Teaching and Research Publishing Limited (FLTRP), the leading education products and services provider in China, signed an agreement for publication of the 2014 Chinese language edition of the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS™ annual.

The Mandarin translation of the world’s biggest-selling copyright book will be released ahead of Chinese New Year in January 2014 and will contain a special section focusing on records achieved by and in China.

The signing marks the first in a series of Guinness World Records -FLTRP publishing, e-publishing and live event initiatives that will engage hundreds of thousands of young people in educational world record challenges and provide tens of millions more with inspired educational content accessible in print and on all devices.

China-book-signing-1.jpgSpeaking at the signing, Guinness World Records President, Alistair Richards said, “FLTRP is a leader in China’s educational publishing market and, as a business and as an authority, this is one of our most exciting new partnerships. We share FLTRP’s founding dedication to ‘recording human civilization and bridging different cultures’ and I thank President Cai for encouraging our teams to explore and embrace synergies that go far beyond the traditional publishing model”.

FLTRP President, Cai Jianfeng remarked that “FLTRP is proud to launch our co-operation with Guinness World Records by publishing the official Chinese edition of this famous annual book, which has been entertaining and informing audiences across the globe for nearly 60 years.”

Cai added that “In honour of this new partnership, FLTRP will be attempting a GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for Most people to write a story as part of our forthcoming Beijing Reading Season from Aug 29 to Sep 7, 2013, and national-scale record attempts will be a key way of engaging with our market going forward. The chance to feature in the book itself is an exciting proposition.”

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For the editorial teams, the later Chinese New Year launch offers the opportunity to create a Chinese records section unique to that edition. Wu Hao, Director of Humanities and Social Sciences Publishing at FLTRP will oversee the publication and he offers some clear contenders. “Most special entries will be Chinese, but Robert Downey Jr. (Most contributions to a greetings card) and Julio Iglesias (Best selling artist of Latin music - male) are two global stars I expect to feature as their GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS Certificates were presented in China this year. It works both ways and one truly intrepid young Chinese record holder, whose name I cannot reveal today, will be presented with his Certificate in London alongside his hero next week”.

The partnership is being managed for Guinness World Records by its new wholly-owned subsidiary in Beijing and Greater China President, Rowan Simons estimates the region will average nearly two official adjudications a week this year. “Greater China is one of the fastest growing record breaking regions and hundreds more records will be eligible for inclusion in this edition as our Beijing team extends its research in Chinese,” he adds.

According to Simons, this first deal with FLTRP is just one part of a long term strategy that will see GWR introduce full Chinese language products and services across its business lines. “FLTRP was our first choice to bring record breaking solutions to kids known for their thirst for knowledge. The scale of the opportunity in the ELT sector alone is superlative with FLTRP estimating that over 500,000 students participated in its most recent language competition”.