Minister Park Bo-gyun: "KOFICE omitted profits from Seoul Book Fair... Financial misconduct audit"

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Fails to Submit Detailed Revenue Reports Since 2018
"Obligation to Return Excess Revenue Profits to the Treasury Not Fulfilled"

Park Bo-gyun, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, announced on the 24th that he has discovered misconduct at the 'Seoul International Book Fair' hosted by the Korea Publishing Culture Association (Chulhyeop) and is conducting a thorough audit.

Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Park Bo-gyun is speaking at a meeting related to the K-Book vision held on the 24th at the National Theater in Seogye-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

At a press conference held at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism meeting room in Seogye-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, Minister Park said, "As a result of auditing the Seoul International Book Fair, we found that accounting aspects such as profit reporting were astonishingly mismanaged, and regrettable misconduct was discovered."

The Ministry explained that the profit report of the Seoul International Book Fair had been omitted for over six years, and if violations of relevant laws are found, they plan to request an investigation by the authorities. According to the Ministry, Chulhyeop has not submitted detailed profit reports to the Publishing Industry Promotion Agency of Korea (hereafter Publishing Promotion Agency) even once from 2018 to the present during the settlement of government subsidies.

Additionally, they will investigate whether there was tacit collusion with the supervisory organization, the Publishing Promotion Agency.

Approximately 1 billion KRW in subsidies is provided to the Seoul International Book Fair, and separately, Chulhyeop generates several hundred million KRW in profits by collecting admission fees and booth usage fees from participating publishers and institutions during the fair. The Publishing Promotion Agency is responsible for executing and supervising Chulhyeop’s business operations, including subsidy execution and profit usage.

In particular, when the Ministry began a detailed audit, Chulhyeop showed an uncooperative attitude by deleting some profit deposit and withdrawal records before submitting them. A significant portion of the deleted profit records was found to be participation fees received from overseas participating institutions, which Chulhyeop had not properly reported before the audit.

Minister Park stated, "Chulhyeop has not provided sufficient explanations regarding these suspected fatal moral and financial misconducts," and pointed out, "We found multiple instances of negligence where basic accounting procedures, such as the obligation to return excess profits from the international book fair to the national treasury, were not properly carried out, raising suspicions."

He added, "The Ministry will closely track whether there was tacit collusion between Chulhyeop and the Publishing Promotion Agency and whether cartel-like factors were at play," emphasizing, "If violations of the Subsidy Act or other laws are found as a result of the investigation, we will request an investigation of Chulhyeop’s responsible persons by the relevant authorities, and hold the Publishing Promotion Agency accountable for supervisory negligence in settlement duties."

Regarding the Ministry’s announcement on the day, Chulhyeop stated, "This is not true, and we will review the Ministry’s claims and issue a statement."

The Seoul International Book Fair, held for five days from the 14th of last month at COEX in Seoul, attracted over 130,000 visitors. This represents an increase of more than 30% compared to the previous year, with participation from 530 companies across 36 countries.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.