The International Publishers Association general assembly voted to admit five new national publishing organizations, increasing the IPA's membership to 64 publishers associations in 59 countries, serving more than 5.5 billion people, the Bookseller reported.
The Union of Iraqi Publishers, Ivorian Publishers Association, Mauritanian Union for Publishing & Distribution, Union of Moroccan Publishers, and Senegalese Publishers Association were admitted as provisional members in a meeting at last week's Frankfurt Book Fair, following a "unanimous" decision by the general assembly.
In other IPA news, Dutch publisher Michiel Kolman was formally elected to succeed Richard Charkin as president of the IPA when Charkin steps down January 1 at the end of his two-year term.