Culture Minister Nina Obuljen-Korzinek, who on Tuesday opened an international conference on reading promotion, underscored that the ministry had earmarked about 100 million kuna this year "to promote books and reading," state agency Hina said on Tuesday.

For years the ministry has conducted activities to stimulate the book and reading and encourage all those who participate in the chain of making a book – from those who write, produce and distribute them to those who print them, the  minister underscored.

In this Year of Reading, we wish to stimulate reading interest with this conference too and to put it in the focus of expert attention, she added.

She said that the pandemic encouraged people to read and 2021 has been declared as the Year of Reading.

Stimulating reading, she underscored, is achieved in many ways from media campaigns to motivating young people to read.

That helps in creating active citizens who will participate in social processes.

Local and international experts participated in the conference including Maryanne Wolf from the UCLA Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice, as well as Adriaan van der Weel, a Professor Emeritus by special appointment at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society,  Sabine Uehlein, the director of the German Stiftung Lesen and some other distinguished guests.