The new Korean culture crave started with a highly rate TV series and has help salvage South Korea's tourism industry.

Japan's animation industry, which accounts for 63 percent of the world's market, is now worth more than US$170 million.

Disney's animated feature "Mulan" has been seen around the world earning more than US$400 million and becoming one of the company's most profitable movies.

Today, entertainment that is mainly movies, television programs and sports has become a pillar of the contemporary world economy.

As one of the world's fastest developing emerging industries, the culture industry - with a growth rate far higher than the aggregate world economy - is being dubbed the golden industry in the 21st century.

Currently, the international cultural market has four major players: the United States accounts for 42.6 percent the market, Europe 33.9 percent; Asian and South Pacific countries 19 percent and other countries share the remaining 4.5 percent.

In Asia and South Pacific, Japan's cultural industry accounts for 10 percent of the world total while South Korea's share is 3.5 percent. This leaves China and all the other countries in the Asian group to share the remaining six percent of the world total cultural-industry market.

As many countries have discovered, China is a growing as cultural power and the market potential is tremendous.

Half to the world's top 500 multinational corporations have invested in China in a scramble against their Chinese counterparts for market share. The same is now happening in cultural industries. The United States, Canada and European Union (EU) have used all possible means to grab a bit of the Chinese culture market. They are pushing their advantage in movies, TV programs and DVD, and are preparing advances in publishing, advertising and sports. Japan and South Korea are also keeping a close eye on China's huge potential culture market which includes movies, TV series and cartoons. They are even looking for sales in games, toys and flower arranging.

While China continues to welcome foreign cultural products, a "China wind" has still not stirred up much dust. China is unable to bring out cultural products that can compete or compare with the Korean drama series "Dae Jang-geum", or the Japanese cartoon "Chibi Maruko Chan" or any of Disney's animation efforts.

China it seems remains passive in cultural exchanges, international competition and the culture trade.

Our culture industry mainly relies on traditional performances in movies and TV programs, and in the audio-visual and advertising industry. Meanwhile digital industries such as creative design, animation, online games, which have grown by leaps in developed countries, are only now beginning in China.

China has been slow in developing new culture-industry technologies and has been relegated to filling mid to low-end jobs for cultural enterprises.

China's culture economy is faced with three major obstacles: restrictive government policies, internal problems within the industry itself and regional disparity and uneven development across the country.

Improvement is needed in risk investment and financing. Cultural enterprises also need to become more familiar with international marketing regulations in order to become an stronger international player.

Despite these issues, China's cultural industry is faced with unprecedented historical opportunities as well as challenges. To go global, China must perfect its cultural policy and rebuild the image of Chinese culture.

China has time-honored cultural tradition, profound cultural resources and immense reserves of creative energy, all of which will be needed to develop an international culture industry with Chinese characteristics.

Editor: Wing