With its place of business in Frankfurt/Main, the Ausstellungs- und Messe GmbH (AuM) is a subsidiary of the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels - the German Publishers & Booksellers Association.

Since 1949, it has been organising the Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest and most important fair worldwide for the international book and media industry.

The AuM is particularly concerned to advance international networking within the book industry and to make the industry’s practices more professional.

As a foreign trade organisation acting for the German book trade, the AuM has the cultural and political mission to represent the German book industry worldwide and to promote international cultural exchange and the free dissemination of the written word.

AuM activities in carrying out these responsibilities include the following:

AuM activities

The AuM is involved in two other international book fairs
The AuM is a co-founder of the Cape Town Book Fair (CTBF) which was successfully premiered in 2006. It organises the fair in cooperation with the Publishers’ Association of South Africa (PASA).

For many years, it has also been increasingly active in the Arab world. In 2007, it joined the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) in setting up the company KITAB (Arabic for “book”) in the United Arab Emirates. The joint venture’s activities include the organisation of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair.

City of Refuge
In cooperation with the city of Frankfurt the Frankfurt Book Fair is supporting the program "Cities of Refuge", thus showing its clear support for persecuted writers and freedom of speech.