Chinese 'People's Daily' hits 50

One year after launching in the region, the Chinese language ‘People’s Daily’ Middle East edition is adding more pages and planning English and Arabic editions.

The ‘People’s Daily Overseas Edition’ from the Middle East is published from Dubai, licenced under the UAE National Media Council and has just released its 50th edition of the newspaper, which is a weekly.

‘People’s Daily’, is one of the top 10 newspapers in the world and one of the most circulated Chinese newspapers.

According to the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) the circulation of the ‘People’s Daily’ in China is 2.5 million.

Speaking to Emirates 24|7, Dilidaer Doulikun, or Dina as she asks be called, Marketing Operations Director, People’s Daily Overseas Edition Middle East, said the newspaper puts out 20,000 copies here.

“It is the ‘People’s Daily’, but in the Middle East we publish only once in a week, because we don’t have so much news pertaining to the Chinese community here to publish a daily newspaper.

“We are happy with the 50 editions that we have already published from July 2012.

“The newspaper is in Chinese and is the only officially licensed Chinese publication from the UAE.

“It is well received by the Chinese community, business people, Chinese students, diplomats and embassy staff and the Chinese working class,” Dina adds.

The Chinese newspaper industry is the biggest in the world and the overseas Middle East edition is only a miniature form of the giant newspaper, which sells several million copies per day in the most populous country in the world.

While pages 1 to 14 are devoted to news from mainland China, the remaining pages are devoted to Middle East and news concerning the Chinese community with sections like ‘Overseas Chinese’, ‘Returnees Ventures’, ‘Cultural Galaxy’, ‘Zoom of Dubai’, ‘Window of Chinese Embassies’ and ‘Eye in the Middle East’.

“The Chinese students in the UAE, some Chinese companies and other members of the community send us their news and invite our journalists to cover their events. “During the Dubai World Cup we had a full page article about the racing,” Dina says.

Major advertisers for the newspaper include Chinese and UAE companies, leading banks from the UAE and real estate companies.

A major purpose of the local edition of Peoples Daily is to make the Chinese community aware of the Arab customs and tradition and to bridge the cultural gap between the Arabs and the Chinese community here, making them aware of the local rules, regulations, customs and traditions.

The editorial team is headed by Gavin Tang, Director , who has been in Dubai for 20 years.

“We avoid covering politics and crime. We plan to increase the number of pages to include more information useful to the Chinese community in the UAE and Gulf,” Dina says.