A new bookstore brand, aiming to create an open reading space in cities, was unveiled at the ongoing Shanghai Book Fair on Monday. Entitled "city reading room," the store is a collaboration between Xinhua Bookstore and Lianjia, one of the largest real estate companies in China.

In recent years, Shanghai has been encouraging a love of reading to build a city of avid readers. To provide residents with a convenient reading space and encourage them to form better reading habits, Xinhua Bookstore, which has set up numerous stores across the country, collaborated with the real estate giant Lianjia, which has more than 1000 outlets in Shanghai, to establish a new bookstore brand.

“We are dedicated to the reconstruction of our stores and we hope to use less building to create more space, satisfying citizens’ growing demand for public services,” said Wang Yongqun, chief operating officer of Lianjia.

So far, Lianjia has opened a total of 20 bookstores in Shanghai. They plan to open 30 new stores and host at least 200 non-profit cultural activities by the end of 2020. Besides offline events, Xinhua Media and Lianjia will launch a new Wechat mini program where people can borrow books for free with a premium membership.

“I believe we will do better in the future. Lianjia will make continued efforts to encourage more people to fall in love with reading,” said Wang.