Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Rosanna Law said on Wednesday that Hong Kong's enhanced digital publishing initiative will soon incorporate Arabic translations in the hope of strengthening cultural ties with the Middle East.

Law made the announcement at a launch ceremony for Publishing 3.0+, where she highlighted the success of its predecessor, Publishing 3.0.

That project enabled approximately 60 local publishers to convert paper publications into 5,000 bilingual e-books and audiobooks in Cantonese, Putonghua and English, capitalising on digital transformation.

Building on this success, Publishing 3.0+ leverages artificial intelligence to further modernise the industry.

Law said the enhanced initiative will utilise large language models to significantly improve multilingual translations and content conversion capabilities.

"Publishing 3.0+ will refine the e-books and audiobooks converted over the past years and further deliver another 5,000 translated and converted copies of books," she said.

"The fruitful expected outcome of 10,000 e-books and audiobooks will be showcased in Hong Kong pavilions at various international book fairs in the coming months."

Law also confirmed plans to incorporate Arabic translations into the project.

"During my official visit to the Middle East in April this year, I was deeply impressed by the region's rich cultural and historical heritage," she said.

"I am most delighted that Publishing 3.0+ will contribute to our effort to realising closer cultural links and friendship between the Middle East and Hong Kong, aligning the shared visions of both regions."

Sharon Wong, one of the chairs at Publishing 3.0+, said the first phase saw a 75 percent improvement in e-book conversion speed and that the new initiative enhances local publishers’ multilingual capabilities.

"I hope that through this project, we can bring copyright holders, creators and AI developers together and work together in enhancing Hong Kong as a cultural centre or IP trading hub because we are under rapid AI development," she said.

"That is to promote the publishing industry and to promote our cultural product overseas."