Cultural Activities

As of the end of 2016, the city boasted 3 first class cultural institutions and museums as well as 61 second and third class cultural institutions and museums. Municipal museums held exhibitions at the grassroots level for 170 times and local residents visited the museums for free for 4.3 million person-times. Local art groups and troupes put on 1, 068 shows, including 237 free shows or shows with extremely reasonable prices to benefit the people, greatly enriching the cultural life of the citizens. The city played digital movies in the rural areas for 17,672 times, attracting over 2.01 million person-times of audience, fulfilling 100% of the task to play digital movies in the rural regions. Local authorities also organized 122 groups and 1,720 person-times of local artists to go abroad or visit Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan for cultural exchanges, playing a positive role in boosting the international image of Guangzhou among her sister cities and their people.

Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival, China. As the largest documentary festival in China and with the greatest international influence, GZDOC 2016 received 4,059 films/episodes from 111 countries and regions, ranking as No.1 among all Asian documentary festivals as far as the countries and regions involved and the number of films solicited are concerned.

Guangzhou International Art Fair. As the only national-class professional art fair in South China, the 21st Guangzhou International Art Fair attracted nearly 20,000 art pieces from over 350 art institutions of 35 countries and regions, realizing the transaction of 600 million yuan and setting a new historic record.

Guangzhou New Year Concert. Guangzhou New Year Concert, whose inaugural session was held in 1993, is the nation’s first New Year Concert brand advocated by a local city and the only one being hosted by the same orchestra for 20 years consecutively.

Educational Development

Commonweal, inclusive and standard development of pre-school education. In 2016, the city had 1,618 standardized kindergartens, taking up 92.5% of the total; and 1,348 government sponsored or inclusive private kindergartens, taking up 77.1% of the total.

Balanced and high-standard growth of compulsory education. The city’s government-sponsored standardized schools for compulsory education reached 1,062, taking up 100% in total while the standardized schools in the private sector also amounted to 282, occupying 78.33% of the total.

Special features highlighted in ordinary high schools. Subjects with special features have been set up in 99 of the 120 ordinary high schools of the city.

Social Science Development

Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences pioneered the “Research on Major Projects” in 2016, finishing 14 major projects, 23 policy consultation projects and publishing 24 academic monographs. The social science circle also established the Guangzhou Urban Strategy Research Institute, playing a dominant role in the research on Guangzhou and actively exploring the experience and mode for developing the new type of urban think tanks.

Sports Development

Guangzhou has vigorously boosted the coordinated development of mass sports, competitive sports and the sports industry since 2016. A total of 13 athelets were selected into the Chinese delegation to the Rio2016 Olympic Games, winning 3 gold medals, 2 bronze medals, 1 fourth place and 1 fifth place.

In 2016, the city’s athlets won 20 world champions, 11 Asian champions and 90 national champions in domestic and foreign competitions. Guangzhou also succssfully held 11 major international sports events including AFC Champions League, Guangzhou Open and 2016 Guangzhou Marathon.

In the same year, the local government continued to support Guangzhou Evergrande Football Club and Guangzhou R & F Football Club to come on top at the Chinese Football Association Super League and the Asian Football Conferderation Champions League. The authorities also attracted a professional basketball team to be relocated in Guangzhou.

Medical Service

Guangzhou actively boosted the initiative to nurture a “City with Top Medical Services”, striving to turn Guangzhou into a first class regional medical service “high ground”, which will also be first class in the world, before 2020. As of the end of 2016, the city was home to a total of 3,806 health institutions with a total of 88,000 beds. There were a total of 138,000 professional health workers of all kinds including 47,000 practicing physicians (practicing physician assistants included) and 61,000 registered nurses. In the same year, health institutions citywide provided 148 million person-times of medical services and 2.754 million person-times of out-patients services.