Culture industry takes a hit, looks to Expo
- Source: Global Times
- [08:22 August 05 2010]
- Comments
By Duan Wuning
The trade volume of Shanghai's culture industry reached $13.2 billion in 2009, down 14.9 percent year-on-year due to the financial crisis and appreciation of the renminbi, figures released Wednesday revealed.
According to Wang Xinpei, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, culture industry imports were valued at $4.36 billion, and exports at $8.91 billion yuan during the period.
The US remained the number one market for Shanghai's culture industry exports, worth $2.61 billion, while Japan ranked number one in terms of cultural imports to the city at $986 million.
Officials are optimistic about the industry's performance this year in the city, with the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai providing a great boost as it spurs cultural events.
According to Shanghai Municipal Culture, Radio Broadcasting and TV Administration, over 400 performances have been put on on Shanghai's stages in the past three months, compared to an average of 200 per year.
Internet and exhibition-related industries saw a great increase, up 19.9 percent and 16.3 percent respectively year-on-year.
The city is finding ways to finance the culture industry. As well as the agreement the city reached with China Development Bank last year to finance the culture industry to the tune of $30 billion, China Communications Bank and the Shanghai Municipal Press and Publication Bureau just signed a $10 billion deal last week to finance the press and publications industry in Shanghai.
Authorities are also encouraging more small and medium-size culture-related enterprises to list on the Growth Enterprise Market to boost their capitalization.
"We want to encourage more qualified enterprises to get listed, since the capitaliza-tion rate of State-owned cultural enterprises is only a little over 1 percent," said Zhang Zhijing, the deputy director of the Municipal Publicity Department of Shanghai.
