2018 Silk Road International Culture Innovation and Development Summit held in Xi’an

On the afternoon of May 11th, the culture-themed conference for the Third Silk Expo keynote forum - 2018 Silk Road International Culture Innovation and Development Summit was held in Xi’an.

Themed with “Silk Road International Culture Innovation and Development”, the summit is dedicated to building an international forum for cultural exchanges so as to make the brand “Cultural China” expand overseas, accelerate the development of China’s cultural industry, and enhance the exchanges and cooperation among countries along the Silk Road in cultural undertakings and industries. A total number of about 700 people, including elites, experts and scholars from abroad and at home in the field of cultural creative industry, members of the Silk Road International Satellite TV Alliance and media from across the country were invited to the summit to have an in-depth discussion in the four aspects, respectively, the integrated development of cultural industry and capital innovation, cultural brand building and global communication, integrated development of media and industries, and the relationship between cultural industry and urban development. It was learnt that over 400 enterprises, including 70 overseas enterprises attended the summit with 18 cooperation projects agreements signed, totaling RMB26.868 billion.

Shaanxi deems developing the cultural industry as an important component for strengthening cultural development, and incorporates it into its comprehensive plan for overall arrangements. With order and development as the two key points, the cultural industry in Shaanxi has continued to grow in both scale and competence. According to preliminary statistics, the added value of Shaanxi cultural industry in 2017 reached RMB90 billion, and that of registered market entities in cultural and relevant industries increased by 21,700 to 66,000, a year-on-year increase of 61.8%; the number of cultural enterprises above designated size increased by 276 to 980, up 39.21% year-on-year; and the investment in cultural industries reached over RMB177.6 billion with a year-on-year increase of 21.3%. To date, there have been 2 listed cultural enterprises, and 14 cultural enterprises listed in the New OTC Market in Shaanxi, demonstrating a strong momentum in the cultural industry.

In keynote speeches, Gail Gabriel Patin, the Director of China Strategy, Casa Asia Fund, Yi Di, the Vice President of Perfect World Co., Ltd., Fan Zhou, the Dean of the Culture Development Institute of Communication University of China and the Director of the Cultural Industry Expert Committee of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the PRC, Wang Hua, the Executive Director of Poly Culture Group Corporation Limited, and Jiang Ping, the General Manager of China Film Co., Ltd., shared their in-depth knowledge.

As a professor, doctoral supervisor, as well as the Head of the Faculty of Economics and Management of the Culture Development Institute of the Communication University of China, Mr. Fan talked about the innovative mindset, principle and method to develop the Silk Road cultural industries: “We must innovate the mode of development and attach great importance to the integrated development of culture, science and technology, as well as the integrated application of emerging technologies. We should stick to the principle of integrating culture and guiding innovation driven by science and technology. Only by using the technological innovation to push forward with the content revolution, can we offer more updated and competitive cultural products for a broader global market, and eventually make the brands of the Silk Road cultural industry stronger and more famous.”

The title of Mr. Wang’s speech was “Poly Culture Boosts the Cultural Industry with the Help of the ‘Belt and Road’”. Through case analysis about Poly Culture Group’s decision to set foot in Yiwu, a city in Zhejiang Province following the trend of the “Belt and Road”, he illustrated how the Yiwu Poly Cultural Innovation Collaboration Center contributed to the restructuring of the manufacturing industry, the enlarging of cross-border trade scale, and the upgrading of the cultural industry. He also expressed that the Poly Culture Group hopes to have strategic cooperation with Xi’an and Shaanxi under the “Belt and Road” initiative to play a more active and important role.

Mr. Jiang explained the international dissemination of Chinese culture from the professional perspective of the film industry, and believed that cultural confidence is important for China to turn from a big movie-making country into a movie powerhouse.

The year of 2018 is a great year for cultural industry development, and this summit focuses on the most concerned topics in the industry. In the forum session, guests from different fields shared their insights, answered questions concerned, and discussed important topics including the changes and development of the international cultural industry in the future. “The international vision of cultural industry innovation” became the hot topic of this summit forum.