The year 2015 is characterised by unprecedented opportunities for China’s cultural industry, thanks to enormous room for expansion introduced by such national strategies as One Belt One Road, Jing-Jin-Ji Integration, and Internet Plus, sound environment for sustained development ensured by a string of guiding and supportive policies, and massive market potential promised by ever-increasing appetite for cultural consumption. Amid such favourable policies and market environment, China’s cultural industry is positioned among highest-return industries, overflowing with capital worldwide.
ICCIE 2015 will stage dozens of business promotions around 15 themes in line with demands of market and enterprises. Global premium resources pooled, we aspire to serve as a matchmaker between projects and capital, purchasers and sellers, and potential employers and talents. Over 1,000 Chinese cultural projects with distinctive regional characteristics, boasting novel technologies, products, and business models, will seek global bidders via this grand international platform for investment and trade. These unique projects guarantee rosy prospects with handsome returns.
Cultural projects enriching the public are favoured, with emerging sector as its principal player.
ICCIE entrants are—and always have been—held to high standards, which forms the prerequisite for successful bidding. ICCIE 2015 will continue to present the very best of distinctive projects.
A closer look at projects chosen by ICCIE Organizing Committee Office reveals two general trends: emerging cultural sector is a dominant player accounting for 70%, while the remaining 30% goes to favoured featured traditional sector; eastern region focuses on emerging cultural and market hotspot projects, but central and western regions are committed to traditional cultural projects.
Emerging cultural projects feature prominently in Shandong’s promotion. Changmei.com, a 32-million-yuan project, will pioneer a new business model for journalism, and the 33-million-yuan-worth “Qingkuai plus” will develop China’s largest mobile-Internet cloud platform—“a new generation of major mobile-internet Innovative application that rivals WeChat and Weibo”, experts claim.
The same is true of Beijing, whose devotion to drama and show business clearly illustrates the guiding role of market hotspots. Lady Zhaojun, a 25-million-yuan song and dance drama, unfolds a compelling world as oriental aesthetics in dancing, poem, light show, customs, ikebana, and property find its place in storytelling. Animated movie Spiny Life seeks advertisement placement and authorized derivative business. It tells a hedgehog’s mysterious adventure—the first of its kind in the world—featuring inspiring virtues of tenacity, vigour, courage, and wisdom.
Among all the fascinating featured traditional cultural projects from Chongqing and Qinghai, some with unreproducible nature step into spotlight. Production projects of Qinghai Kunlun jade, Tibetan embroidery, and fine Tibetan garments enjoy unrivalled competitive market edge. Tibetan handicraft, full of pristine beauty and unmistakably local style, is prominently present in modern handicraft and tourism market. Qinghai Tibetan Culture Museum, the only museum in the world specializing in Tibetan medicine, has invested 8.78 million yuan in developing the Smart Tibetan Culture Museum, which, when completed, promises well as the largest Tibetan museum with finest cultural taste in China and even the world, serving as Tibetan’s cultural signature and ethnic brand.
Industrial heritage development projects are impressive. The unique 200-million-yuan 816 Underground Nuclear Project taps into economic and cultural potential by safeguarding the legacy of Third Front Movement and introducing modern technology into this history-laden site. It thus becomes the first nuclear-themed national 4A scenic spot and the first patriotism education base that owes its existence to the Third Front Movement.
Uniqueness is seen in Jilin Baicheng Defence Industrial Park, built on a military base which has witnessed the earliest R&D, testing, and evaluation of conventional weapons since the P.R.C. was founded, and the largest-scale combined forces land military training in Asia. Military stocks there are rendered a historic token, as modern technology advances and future wars transform—which is the perfect time to explore the nebulous memory and myth they bear.
With investment totalling 2 billion yuan, the park will comprise the weapon museum, military experience museum, theme park, and military academy for national defence education. It aims to offer the only world-leading base for military culture demo, defence exercise, teenagers’ patriotism education, students’ summer camp, and military pentathlon training in China.
Intangible cultural heritage entrepreneurship emerges as a source of fortune in cultural industry and thus an investment hotspot. Chongqing Youzhou Miao Embroideries brings a second life to the endangered archaic Miao techniques by protecting and integrating it with tourism, which leads to more job opportunities for local women. Yes’M Autumn, with interests in R&D, producing, manufacturing, and marketing, is committed to carrying forward and promoting Chinese grass cloth. Some 30.1 million yuan will flow into the R&D, Production, and Service Platform of Qinghai Huzhu Barley Wine, a project designed to preserve and pass down this intangible heritage peculiar to Qinghai and Tibet. Given its bearing on local tourism and economy, ensuring the continuity of this industry and setting up local brands are surely conducive to cultural enrichment and economic development.
It should be noticed that new technology and business models have found application for almost all the traditional or featured cultural projects which present a harmonious duet of tradition and modernity. The Defence Industrial Park allows visitors tastes of past, present, and future wars through graphic accounts of warfare in different forms including land-to-air, space, navy-to-air, and cyber war, enabled by smart use of sound, light, electricity, gas, and other modern technologies. After establishing a dozen sales outlets in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzheng, Dali, Chongqing, and Stockholm, Yes’M Autumn plans to improve online sales channels. The Smart Tibetan Culture Museum offers smart tourism services made possible by application of latest information technologies such as the network of things and mobile Internet.
“Culture plus” sectors and whole industrial chain projects are much sought after.
Recipes for new businesses come when culture is combined with Internet, technology, finance, trade, and tourism. Such integration is a new normal of culture development and a major trend embodied in ICCIE 2015 projects.
Due October 30, Beijing 2015 Promotion of Cooperation Projects for Integration and Development of Culture and Related Sectors, under the theme of “Cross-sector Cooperation and Integrated Development”, is set to promote cultural projects integrated with technology, education, tourism, and sports, and expand the role of mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, and network of things in cultural & innovative industry.
The Promotion of Cultural & Creative Projects and Cooperation on Resource Development will pitch industrial integration projects such as e-commerce platforms for art trading and the National Digital Library of China and launch specialised sessions for cooperation between cultural & innovative projects and relevant sectors.
The Animation & Game Project Promotion features 300-odd whole industrial chain projects ranging from animated movies and comics to online games, mobile games, motion sensing games, electronic games, and board games. Digital publishing, digital TV, digital music, digital learning, telecommunications, IT software, and other global digital cultural projects are to be expected as well.
In the Contract-signing Session of Autonomous Regional, Provincial and Municipal Promotion, polices, environment, and cooperation projects of cultural & creative industry will be spelt out. The Chinese Gift Session is set to promote products authorized to bear the collective trademark “Chinese Gift”.
Key enterprises and projects in Taiwan Cultural & Creative Industry Hall will be promoted on October 29 to 30 during the informative Cross-straits Urban Cultural & Creative Industry Session.
The Forum for Professional Youth Designers from Beijing and Taiwan is devoted to professional communications and explorations of potential project cooperation under the theme of youth innovation and entrepreneurship. In the Cross-straits Urban Cultural & Creative Industry Cocktail Party, Beijing-Taiwan cultural & creative cooperation projects will be unveiled for open negotiation.
Financial capital is driving cultural project cooperation along a fast track.
Capital and technology can spark a new wave of start-up activities, but how to leverage financial capital in such an effective manner that it helps cultural enterprises—small and micro ones in particular—and prospers financial sector as well as cultural & creative industry? The answer lies in the Creative Cultural and Financial Projects Contract-signing and Brands Introduction on October 28. Themed “Industrial Crossover and Innovation”, it integrates high-end resources of both sectors to catalyse a transformation in creative cultural industry fuelled by capital.
The promotion is inclusive: it releases Beijing’s Top 30 most investment-worthy cultural enterprises and evaluate and identify future star performers; aiming to unleash small and micro enterprises’ creativity, it presents diversified sessions such as innovation fairs and face-to-face meeting with potential investors and funders to better match projects with capital.
Given their intriguing topics, roundtables are worth expecting. In the session of “Cultural & Creative Industry Thrives under the Sunshine of Finance”, leading investors and bank executives are invited to explore in-depth cooperation between cultural and financial sector—what goldmines the former provides on the one hand, and how traditional finance empowers small and micro creative businesses and helps develop the industry on the other.
As to the keynote speeches, “Investment Curve in Creative Economy” digs deeper into the status quo and investment opportunities based on investment data. “Internet Finance Rocks Cultural and Art Industry” reveals secrets of seamless integration between the two. And do not forget “Face-to-face Meeting with Potential Investors and Funders”, a convenient way to match institutions’ capital with enterprises’ projects.
The Promotion of Beijing Investment and Financing Projects of Cultural & Creative Industry on October 28 aims to expand finance and investment, enhance in-depth integration of culture and finance, and contribute to a diversified, multi-channel, multi-level investment and financing mechanism. It will unveil the most investment-worthy projects and promote investment environment, preferential policies, and critical projects in key districts. Special negotiation and consultation sections are set aside for institutions to take questions over products, projects, and policies.
The Promotion of Cultural and Creative Projects and Cooperation on Resource Development features three special sessions: cultural project planning & special fund application session offers guidance through practice and case study for applying special fund in cultural projects, boosting the success rate of application; consultation session allows project planners access to experts, fuelling discussions over preferential policies for investment in cultural & creative projects; investment and financing project negotiation session invites consultants and representatives from institutions to take questions from participants.
Activities at exhibitions and special sessions, with the very best resources of financial and cultural industries, are also designed as a convenient platform to integrate cultural businesses and key projects with financial sector. At the main venue, Shijingshan launches cultural finance services to perk SMEs up with credit enhancement. Banks will tailor financing plans to cultural & creative businesses on site and provide them with specialised financial products and comprehensive one-stop services.
Coordinated cultural development is seen in projects from Beijing, Tianjin, and Heibei.
Under the theme of “Coordinated Development and Innovation in Jing-Jin-Ji Cluster”, the Promotion of Cultural & Creative Industry Clusters presents this flourishing industry in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei as a cluster, explores a coordination model, and forges complementary partnerships among members of the Association for the Development of Jing-Jin-Ji Cultural & Creative Industry Cluster, contributing to an industrial chain of brand alliance. Resources and bidding- and investment-seeking projects in Jing-Jin-Ji Cultural & Creative Industry Cluster are brought to limelight for regional strategic and win-win cooperation in this field. Participating enterprises will visit their critical peers in a study tour of outstanding cultural and creative industry demonstration parks in Beijing.
At ICCIE Beijing Culture Exhibition, the Promotion of Jing-Jin-Ji Cultural Projects, co-organized by Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture, Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Cultural Broadcasting, and Hebei Provincial Bureau of Culture, widely covers projects in animation production, show business, artwork, cultural consumption platforms, and art parks.
Usher Chinese Cultural Enterprises into Global Arena.
The key to boosting the heft and international competitiveness of Chinese culture lies in fostering export-oriented cultural enterprises by encouraging them to explore overseas markets, an attempt to expand global shares of Chinese cultural products and services. With a commitment to globalizing cultural enterprises, we will host the International Cooperation Project Promotion for Globalizing Chinese Cultural Enterprises and the Foreign-oriented Cultural Trade Policies and Enterprise Promotion.
Themed “Industrialization in China’s Cultural Industry amid Globalization”, the International Cooperation Project Promotion for Globalizing Chinese Cultural Enterprises on October 30 will feature promotions of cultural projects seeking international cooperation—in forms of presentations, specialised dialogues, and negotiations—and contract-signing ceremonies for key projects. Representatives from Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Commerce, foreign envoys in China, renowned experts and scholars, domestic and international chambers of commerce and cultural enterprises will attend these events.
The Foreign-oriented Cultural Trade Policies and Enterprise Promotion is designed, as its theme “Promote Cultural Trade and Expand Outbound Markets” indicates, as a platform of communication where cultural trading companies are informed timely of latest policies of their interests and encouraged and guided to explore and compete in international markets.
It will see interpretations of foreign-oriented cultural trade policies by officials from the Ministry of Commerce, briefings from leaders of Beijing Municipal Commission of Commerce on cultural trade and implementation of the Opinions of the State Council on Accelerating the Development of Foreign Cultural Trade in this city, and foreign market exploration experience and public service platform introduction presented by representatives from leading foreign cultural trading companies in Beijing.
Navigate the development of cultural industry and boost cultural consumption.
The Sixth China Culture Industry Index Launch Ceremony is slated at Renmin University of China on October 31. It has emerged as an ICCIE signature event, as the index has become the barometer of China’s cultural industry development and the ground where regional plans for cultural industry are based.
The press conference, themed Internet plus Cultural Consumption, will witness the release of the third China Cultural Consumption Index and the sixth Provincial & Municipal Cultural Industry Development Index, the latter unveiling a ranking of autonomous regions, provinces and municipalities in terms of overall strength of cultural industry in 2014. Discussions on cultural consumption in the Internet plus era and the implementation of pilot policies in favor of urban and rural cultural consumption are also on the agenda.
Cultural consumption pattern alters when Internet shatters geographic constraints. Surrounding “Culture & Creativity · Consumption · Lifestyle”，the Creative Cultural and Financial Projects Contract-signing and Brands Introduction will dwell on O2O’s role in heralding a new era of cultural consumption.
During the International Cooperation Project Promotion for Globalizing Chinese Cultural Enterprises and the Promotion of Cultural and Creative Projects and Cooperation on Resource Development, government officials in charge of functional departments concerned as well as industrial experts will share their insights in relevant national policies, industrial development momentums, and commercial opportunities of cultural export and trade created by the OBOR strategy. They will also examine hot-bottom issues regarding cultural finance, cultural technology, the integration of cultural & creative sectors with design services, content industry, equity crowd-funding, business model innovation, as well as the models and paths for sustainable globalization of cultural business, and, by doing so, offer guidance on the development of cultural industry.
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