News

Five-Year Plan returns to its Confucian roots

By Liang Chen and Ju Chuanjiang (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-03-09 08:03

Third Shandong Culture Exhibition, in 2010, attracted a large number of visitors. It also provided a venue for more than 3 billion yuan worth of contract discussions. Ju Chuanjiang / China Daily

Under Shandong's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), the province is looking for annual growth of 30 percent in its culture industry, to reach 400 billion yuan ($60.9 billion) by the end of that period.

"The culture industry needs to match Shandong's overall strength. We want it to be a new strategic growth area in the future", said Governor Jiang Daming.

Over the past five years, the culture sector showed promising growth, at an average of 20 percent annually. Total output last year was worth 123 billion yuan and accounted for 3.12 percent of provincial GDP.

For the next five years, the authorities are aiming even higher. A government release, "On Promoting the Culture Industry", from July 2010, said that they expected 100 "new brands" by 2015.

Shandong plans to take advantage of its Confucian roots in everything from film-making and entertainment to publishing, advertising, and tourism, with animation getting special attention.

The cities of Jinan, Qingdao and Yantai have already seen growth in the animation industry and they are hoping for greater cooperation with the technically more advanced South Korea and Japan.

There are plans for 10 bases to produce related hardware, with an annual output of 10 billion yuan, and 100 other bases, with an output of 2 billion yuan.

An investment fund with one billion yuan in startup capital is being set up to support the projects.

Foreign capital is another source of financing that the authorities are considering. Shandong's culture industry seems to be doing well with foreign investors.

From 2009 to 2010, several thousand projects secured foreign capital. The third Shandong Culture Exhibition, in 2010, saw contracts being discussed worth more than 3 billion yuan.

At present, Shandong's culture sector has 440 companies generating a combined annual output of 1 billion yuan.

(China Daily 03/09/2011 page24)