"Friendly Shandong" is promoting culture

Shandong province's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) is calling for an expansion of its markets and increased competitiveness and innovation to promote its culture industry, the Party chief said recently. The culture industry - publishing, the media, animation, and tourism - is expected to see its output quadruple by 2015, from current levels, to 500 billion yuan ($78.4 billion). "Shandong will work hard on expanding markets at home and abroad," explained Jiang Yikang, head of the Shandong Party. Its output stood at 123 billion yuan last year and accounted for 3.12 percent of Shandong's GDP, a demonstration of its potential for Shandong's economy. The province has put more than 100 billion yuan annually into the cultural industry over the past five years. Thanks to this spending, the industry's output value maintained an average annual increase of 20 percent, according to the Cultural Industry Reformation and Development Office, which is affiliated with the provincial publicity department. The provincial governor, Jiang Daming, explained, "Shandong has a long history and is the home of the philosophers Confucius and Mencius so, with this rich culture, it's certainly capable of increasing its culture industry." Jiang added that, "The next five years will see substantial progress in the industry." To increase its competitiveness, Shandong came up with some ideas on developing the industry, back in July, which concentrated on the following sectors: creativity, audio and video production, publishing, the print industry, entertainment, advertising, exhibitions, themed tourism, digital content, animation, and online games. Shandong has said it will support 100 creative industry brands over the same period. In the area of financial support, it plans to raise 1 billion yuan to help major enterprises become more market-oriented. The province set up a Cultural Assets and Equity Exchange office this year to attract more funding for the industry, and it has earmarked 70 million yuan for the industry. In addition, the provincial government has established related preferential policies in the areas of taxation, land use, and financial support. Shandong is also encouraging businesses in the culture industry to raise money themselves, by getting listed on domestic and oversea stock markets. It would like to have at least 10 enterprises listed. In addition, it has plans for building culture-industry theme parks, with an annual output worth of 10 billion yuan each, during the five-year period. It already has 71 provincial culture industry demonstration bases and six State-level bases, such as the Qufu Culture Industry Park, which focuses on Confucius-related businesses and is expected to have annual revenues of 10 billion yuan in five years. Animation bases are also being built in the cities of Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai and Taian. The province has a large number of well-known brands, one of the most prominent of which is the "Friendly Shandong" tag, which is used to promote cultural tourism. The province's annual Culture Industry Expo has also become the main site for promoting the local media, animation and tourism businesses. The last expo saw 138.3 billion yuan in culture deals signed on everything from publishing to radio, television and film to other forms of entertainment. The China (Qufu) International Confucius Culture Festival is now ranked among the world's top 10 most influential celebrations, and generates more than 2 billion yuan in revenues annually. In addition, the province has begun work on a 11.6-billion-yuan Yellow River Cultural Tourism Park, a 15-billion-yuan Association of Southeast Asian Nations Modern Ecological Tourism Zone, and a 10-billion-yuan Phoenix Island Film and Performing Arts Center.