Chinese organizers of a culture show next year in the German city of Frankfurt said on Thursday that Taiwan would be welcome to take part it the effort to promote new books written in Chinese.

Every year, one nation attends the Frankfurt Book Fair as guest of honour, bringing a retinue of authors and musicians to drum up interest from German media and reading public. Turkey has the role this year.

At a briefing, Li Dongdong, the Chinese vice minister for publishing, said reforms had brought freedom of expression to China and anybody could publish book. But she added that authors did have to obey the nation's laws.

The organizing committee said China would invite its special regions, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as Taiwan, to help promote Chinese literature and culture and cultivate "harmonious exchange" between cultures during the 2009 fair.

Zhang Jie, author of the noted 1981 Chinese novel Leaden Wings, said her country had made huge progress in the past 30 years.

"By and large, writers are not restricted in their creativity and can write what they please," she said, while adding that many Chinese were more interested in fun and shopping that in literary reflection.

Officials said at the briefing that China had more than 500 publishing houses of which about 100 had been privatized.

Book Fair director Juergen Boos said China could decide itself how to carry out the guest-of-honour show and German organizers would limit themselves to giving advice only.