According to Minister of Education and Training Pham Manh Hung, a Vietnamese reads four books a year, the rate which is comparatively low in comparison with his peer in Singapore, where a person reads 14 books a year or in Malaysia, where each reads 10 books a year.

The ministry also hopes reading would help improve education quality and provide social skills for people.

The book day provides an opportunity to honour people who are involved in the book industry, including authors, editors, publishers, distributors and librarians.

At the opening ceremony, several publishers donated thousands of books to the ministry’s library.