With science and technology, Xi'an High-Tech Zone leads the cultural and creative industry

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With science and technology, Xi'an High-Tech Zone leads the cultural and creative industry

(People's Daily Online) 10:28, October 31, 2013

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"Baidu is expected to acquire all the equities of 91 Mobile Phone Assistant , which is said to be the most widely used mobile application store in China, at a price of USD1.9 billion." The reason why Baidu is willing to bear such a high price lies in that it has identified an entry point into the cultural and creative industry.

The cultural and creative industry is precisely the core area, in which the combination of culture and technology can give birth to new ideas. In Xi'an High-tech Zone, the intensive development of the cultural and creative industry has been initiated since 2006. In recent years, the High-tech Zone, by seizing the opportunities of the establishment of National Digital Publishing Base and National Demonstration Base for the Integration and Innovation of Culture, Science and Technology, has focused on the development of such industries as digital publishing, animation and game, so as to promote the integration of culture, science and technology.

Since 2009, the High-tech Zone has invested RMB30 million to support the creative industry every year, gathering more than 2,000 creative enterprises here at present. The creative industry sustains its development rate of more than 40%, making it one of the fastest-growing strategic emerging industries in the High-tech Zone.

Recently, the High-tech Zone lavished another RMB30 million on encouraging the development of creative enterprises. Then, how much influence does the creative industry really have? "Breaking the Cocoon into a Butterfly: Xi'an Metamorphosed into a Leading IT City", an IC industrial comic of Samsung Electronics created by a Korean, is the best answer to the above question. Displayed in the special animation zone dedicated to Shaanxi Province - "I Animated, Chang'an Show " which is jointly produced by the creative office of the High-tech Zone and China Mobile, the comic book gives the readers an opportunity to get a good understanding of the integrated circuit industry and Xi'an through this new media.

Shun competition with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to seek for further development

"Qin Pro-Baby" visited Japan for cultural exchanges
A rising creative industry in Shaanxi Province

"The award amount of RMB30 million is a continuation of the previous policy." the head from the Creative Office of Xi'an High-tech Zone said, "In addition, a series of tax support strategies, like the reduction of income tax, VAT and business tax and some other taxes at the national policy level, coupled with some special supporting policies such as outstanding project award, platform construction, market expansion and personnel training, help create a good environment to develop the creative industry in the High-tech Zone."

Under such circumstances, the creative industry of High-tech Zone enjoys a smooth development. Now there are 16 registered industry cluster districts comprising of more than 2,000 creative enterprises engaged in animation and game industry, mobile internet industry, radio, film and television industry, culture and art industry, digital publishing industry, advertisement and media industry, etc., which attract 50,000 creative staff and develop about 4,000 products with copyrights each year, making the revenue exceed RMB10 billion. Among them, there are more than 120 enterprises, including Fenteng Digital Technology Co., Ltd. and Chang Feng Movie and TV Cultural Communications Co., Ltd. working on animation and game, and this industry has recruited nearly 10,000 employees and gathered 80% industrial resources of Xi'an in this regard.

The clustering of animation enterprises gives birth to numerous excellent cultural products. Take Chang Feng Movie and TV Cultural Communications as an example. Its cartoon figure "Qin Pro-Baby", which integrates the elements of Terra Cotta Warriors, was used as an animation image of Shaanxi Province for cultural communications in Japan in July, 2012. And the national public technology service platform of animation and game created by Chang Feng Movie and TV Cultural Communications, has gained great financial support from governments of the country, province, city and the High-tech Zone. What's more, equipments on the platform for motions capture are designed for animation enterprises in the central and western China. Enterprises applying this platform to make products can receive an allowance of 30% of its product costs from the High-tech Zone.

In addition, "Xian Li Gu" , the first 3D animation in northwest region broadcasted on Shaanxi TV recently, was one achievement of enterprises in the High-tech Zone as well. What's more, there are over 60 news and publishing enterprises in the High-tech Zone represented by Shaanxi Publishing Group, one of the largest companies in this sector in Shaanxi Province. And a group of private film and television enterprises have ever been presented with the Huabiao Awards, Hundred Flowers Awards and many other honors.

"Yet the creative industry in High-tech Zone still has a long way to go to reach that the development level of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in this sector, as creative industries in these three mega cities are bathed in a mature industrial circumstance and a kind of natural radiating capacity. But enterprises in the High-tech Zone boast the advantages in the aspects of human resources, science and technology resources and profound culture deposits as an ancient city, making it easy to achieve a breakthrough when competing with these big cities in other fields, such as focusing on research and development and service outsourcing." the head official confessed.

Core cluster district supports the development of industries

National digital publishing base plays a leading role
Promote the gathering and integration of enterprises

"As creative enterprises in the High-tech Zone are distributed in a dispersed way currently except the Creative Industry Cluster on Tangyan Road, we are stepping up the construction of Xi'an National Digital Publishing Base and promoting the commencement of the Internet and Cultural Industry Park, so as to build a supporting district for creative industries," the head official explained. And Xi'an National Digital Publishing Base, which is under busy construction, is expected be built in the first half of next year.

According to informed sources, as China's eighth digital publishing base, Xi'an National Digital Publishing Base in the High-tech Zone covers an area of 220 mu in the first stage, mainly used for the development of mobile publishing, e-book animation and online games, and the establishment of six supporting service platforms such as mass content delivery platform, talent training platform for digital publishing industry, investment and financing service platform and so on.

"The base has received financial support from the High-tech Zone of RMB80 million, RMB40 million from Xi'an Municipal Government and RMB40 million from the People's Government of Shaanxi Province." the head official revealed, "when completed, the base will bring together more digital publishing enterprises in the High-tech Zone, and will be dedicated to developing the digital publishing industry with the high technology as its basis, digital contents as its core and copyright trading as its trade method. Besides, it will build an industry cluster district with the integration of original contents, technology R&D, digital processing, copyright operation and terminal service and construct a service system covering the incubation and cultivation, platform operation and sound investment and financing. The annual output of the base is expected to exceed RMB10 billion by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan, RMB100 billion by 2020."

"In addition, we also planned an area of 200 mu for Internet and culture industrial park along Xitai Road, which will provide related enterprises with a platform to conduct cooperation and exchanged and integrate resources from three aspects, namely, Internet consumption, Internet advertisement and Internet AV." the head official said, "Internet culture will be the hub of all kinds of cultures in the future. For example, the consumption culture based on e-commerce is subverting the traditional pattern and the current number of people engaged in e-commerce reaches 20,000. It seems that the trend to build an industrial chain cannot be halted."

Two platforms form the core part of animation

"I Animated, Chang'an Show" makes success in its first pilot
The first local platform of China Mobile is built

Physically, the supporting area is the root of a company, but its flourish needs the radiation of network platform. Comics of the World, a masterwork of Cartoonist Mr. Wang Peiqi, becomes famous through a platform called "I Animated, Chang'an Show". Not so long after it was uploaded, the hits reached up to 10,387 times. Part of the costs arising from users' downloading and network flow became the profits of Mr. Wang. All of these made Mr. Wang who had drawn comics on paper for his whole life felt curious and excited.

In order to promote the development of creative industries within the High-tech Zone and the dissemination of Shaanxi culture in foreign countries, the High-tech Zone cooperated with Shaanxi-Comic & Game Association to gather together many animation and game enterprises in Shaanxi Province to set up the platform - "I Animated, Chang'an Show", an independent section with Shaanxi local features based on China Mobile's animation platform.

According to information, this platform, officially launched on July 10, 2012, is the first special zone with local characteristics based on China Mobile's animation platform, offering an opportunity for China Mobile users to get familiarized with Shaanxi via online animation trough five modules like popular recommendations and animation and games of Shaanxi and 20-strong columns. Till up to July 22, 2013, it has collected 405 original works of famous animation writers, 10,728 pieces of comics, and 14,105 minutes of animated film. All of these have been downloaded for 5.57 million times in total.

Since the successful pilot of "I Animated, Chang'an Show", the High-tech Zone has launched another mobile cultural and recreational platform named "I Love Chang'an", cultivated a batch of suppliers of mobile contents, built the industrial chain of Xi'an Mobile Internet, and established the largest base for mobile media industry in western China. So far, it has gathered 489 clients engaged in culture and entertainment operation and motivated a large amount of young people in Shaanxi Province to develop more clients who upload interesting contents online.

"This platform was formally launched on June 28, marking the establishment of first provincial application store of China Mobile across the nation." the head official pointed out, "these two platforms, on the one hand, have changed the form of cultural communication through modern science and technology, and on the other hand, it has protected the traditional culture. For example, the animated Shaanxi folk art exhibits strong vitality. Moreover, the excellent combination of culture, science and technology also is transforming the profit model of animation."

Taking the successful operation of these two platforms as the starting point, we can conclude that the High-tech Zone has formed a "Five in One" model, combining two large national bases, professional parks, leading enterprises, major projects and platform services, and set up a cultural creative industrial chain which integrates culture, creativity, science and technology, finance and trade.