Several Observations on the Current Status of the Cultural and Creative Industries in China Zhang Jiangang Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

☆ I. The Definition of Cultural and Creative Industries ☆ II. The Development of Cultural and Creative Industry in China ☆ III. The Impacts of the Cultural System Reform over the Development of Chinese CCI ☆ IV. Opportunities to Deepen the Reform and Stimulate the Development of China’s CCI

(A) The positive impact  the aim of China’s reformation is to establish a socialist market economy system. So the reform of cultural system is market- oriented too.  And there are two tasks for this reform. Task 1: Open up the cultural market gradually ☆ The Chinese government formally adopted the concept of cultural industries in a positive way. It proposed to “set up cultural products manufacturing and operation institutions and rules”, and “perfect the cultural industries policies”. ☆ The Chinese government recognized that some of cultural products have weaker ideological character than others. This understanding formed the basis for the reform. ＊ open up the cultural market gradually

Task 2 : Differentiate certain state-owned agencies from the proper public service units, and transform the former into market players.  Presumably, a successful reform will create a vigorous, competitive and well-regulated cultural market with public departments serving as a supplementary force.  The three-year “pilot phase of cultural system reform” starting from 2003 made explorations into these two directions. Some of the successful practices from the pilot phase have been promoted vastly thereafter.

☆ Up to 2012, the value-added of Chinese Cultural industries had reached as high as 1,807.1 billion yuan RMB, which is five times of the number in 2003.

(B) The structural deficient of cultural industries  The structural deficient is directly related to the contradiction intrinsic to the goal of the cultural system reform. The development policies of Chinese cultural industries are consisted of two different or even contradictory goals. Goal 1 : T o increase the industrial output value, and encourage the enterprises growing rapidly. Goal 2 : T o regulate the entrance of all cultural products into the market, and to set up strict review rules for the production and broadcasting of cultural products.  Such policies repress the elastic cultural demand.

 Yet it is not desirable for the government to see a decreasing output value or increase rate. Hence, it might adopt two ways to change such negative impressions. First, to i nclude more items into the statistic range. Second, to increase the public spending. ☆ The statistics counts the output value of certain manufacture sectors of the secondary industry as that of the cultural industries, which is part of the tertiary industry. ☆ Many public products are not welcomed by the consumer. Most of the books and old films provided by the public cultural administrations are not favored by the suburban residents.

The Core Circle: Publication, television and broadcast, film, video products, performance, heritage, museum, library, etc. The Periphery Circle: Internet, tourist service, entertainment, advertisement, exhibition, auction, etc. The Connected Circle: Stationary, toy, photographic equipment, music instrument, printing facilities, television and broadcasting facilities, handicraft article, etc. Core Circle Periphery Circle Connected Circle

(C) Concluding remarks ★ The content innovation is the development bottleneck of China’s CCI. ★ Reformation, especially the full open-up of cultural market, will be the only path to this end. ★ I hope Chinese government can seize every opportunity. Thank you very much !