UNESCO Experts have recognized for a long time that China will be a great producer in the world's cultural industry. Nowadays, trades of various cultural products, such as broadcast & television programs, cartoon movies & stories, printed matters, publications, performing arts, audio and video products, amusements, and expositions, are marching their new steps in China.

According to a statistic bulletin of the General Administration of Press and Publication, the export volume of China's various publications, which reached up to US$24 million, hit a record high in 2003. The ratio between imported and exported copyrights had improved greatly to 2.24:1 during the 11th Beijing International Book Fair in 2004 from previous 8:1 and 10.3:1 respectively in the past.

The retail and wholesale exports of audio and video products also had a good performance: the monthly export volume of Guangdong Audio & Video City was over RMB1.5 million yuan on average; from January to July 2004, only the total export volume of audio and video products at Beijing port was up to US$1.154 million, increasing by 78 percent on the year-on-year basis; on the Mid-Autumn Festival of 2004, 1,500 containers of audio and video products made in China passed the inspection of Guangdong custom in one time with a total value above US$1 million.

More and more successful examples of cultural services "stepping outside" have been seen. Chinese acrobatics, China Kongfu, and China dramas, which were taken as a part of culture exchange for years, have been stepping into a new track of commercialized operations. For example, the National Orient Song & Dance Troupe once contracted to conduct a series of business performances with its programs like Sky-blue Romance in East Asia.

In addition, China's export of cultural products has preliminarily presented characteristics of "in-depth processing" and having multiple categories. The so-called "in-depth processing" refers to having abundant domestic culture resources packaged and processed in accordance with the international standards and making them into brands; while having multiple categories means that the export of domestic culture products has begun to extend from simple acrobatic and Kongfu programs to elegant arts, movies and even online games.

Overseas performances and exhibitions sponsored by the Outside Culture Group of China during 10 months last year had attracted an audience of over 10 million person-times, and the "China Performing Arts Agency (CPAA)" of the Group has attracted many major investors as it had earned a ticket income of over RMB100 million yuan through its art and sport performances for Chinese at home and abroad; Having seen that Dynamic Yunnan - Shangri-la, a grand primitive song & dance medley, started its tour in South America for commercial performances in November 2004, the Outside Culture Group of China then launched its new plan for 500 more commercial performances in all famous cites over Five Continents since April 2005.

In 2005, the Ministry of Culture specially set up a Section of International Culture and Economy under the Foreign Liaison Bureau, thus instituting the administrative sequence on the level of policies to coordinate issues on the exportation of cultural products. During the same year, the Ministry of Culture in cooperation with other relevant ministries and commissions instituted quite a few policies to promote the "stepping outside" of cultural products by putting forward the Circular of the Ministry of Culture on Promoting the Exportation of Commercial Performances, Exhibitions, and Cultural Products and publicizing the respective ten outstanding performance programs listed for supports in 2005 and in 2006.

Today, more and more cultural enterprises have found the advantages of exportation. But it should be also seen that as China's trade of cultural products started comparatively late at a comparative low level, there still exist comparatively large deficits in the importation and exportation of cultural products in general although the exportation of cultural products has been presenting a rising trend in recent years.

Nevertheless, we have seen that trades of cultural products are not only bringing forward economic benefits as common trades do but also make good harvests on the trade of cultural products after all. In addition, such trades have extensively promoted the Chinese culture in the world in an unprecedented manner.

The advent of the 2008 Beijing Olympiad will provide a new opportunity for the development of China's cultural industry. Relevant experts hold that the period of Beijing Olympiad will become a "prime period of growth" for China's cultural sector and also the best strategic phase for the Chinese culture to step onto the outside world. As a result, it seems to be extremely necessary and urgent to realize the blast-off of trades in terms of cultural products, which consists of a period of preparation and exploration in the eve of the Beijing Olympiad, the avalanche of brands on the year of the Beijing Olympiad, and a great development in the post-Olympiad phase, by strengthening the construction of the supply chain and the industrial chain for foreign trades of cultural products.

On April 18, the Information Office of the State Council held a press conference on the Second China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry Fair to be held. Driven by the exhibition and transaction platform of the Shenzhen Cultural Industry Fair, China's cultural industry will be made to develop even more rapidly. The Second China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry Fair will hold "originality" and "technology" as the core, focus on making conspicuous products with cultural contents, take as the objective to drive China's cultural products and services to step up to the outside world, fully demonstrate the latest achievement made in the development of China's cultural industry with exhibitions and transactions, forums, prize appraisal, and online exhibitions so as to coin new brands and new international markets.

Editor: Yan