China’s total foreign cultural trade exceeded $200 billion for the first time last year-cultural products went out to sea.
China is the world’s largest trading country in goods, and "Made in China" has long been integrated into the production and life of residents all over the world. Nowadays, China’s cultural products are also accelerating to go global. In 2021, China’s total foreign cultural trade increased by 38.7% year-on-year, surpassing 200 billion US dollars for the first time.
Publications, TV series, games, animations, various design services, advertising services and copyright licenses from China are increasingly loved by enterprises and residents in various countries. How to further stimulate the vitality of foreign cultural trade? A few days ago, the Ministry of Commerce and other 27 departments issued the Opinions on Promoting the High-quality Development of Foreign Cultural Trade (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions), drawing a road map for China cultural trade enterprises to explore overseas markets and realize the high-quality development of foreign cultural trade.
China’s cultural products export has been in the forefront of the world.
Immersive sound system, smart classroom adaptive sound pickup and reinforcement system, multifunctional panoramic sound digital cinema, smart LED touch integrated screen & HELIP; … Entering the Audio and Video Intelligent Science and Technology Museum of Yinwang Group in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, all kinds of independent innovative "black technology" bring people an audio-visual feast.
Since the State Council issued the Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Foreign Cultural Trade in 2014, the development of foreign cultural trade in China has achieved remarkable results. In Ningbo, the local government supported the development of cultural trade enterprises through policy guidance and financial subsidies, and cultivated a number of outstanding cultural trade backbone enterprises such as Yinwang Group. As a key enterprise of national cultural export, Yinwang Group receives a large number of overseas orders at various foreign trade exhibitions every year, and provides cultural product design and debugging services for customers in Italy, the United States, Germany and other countries, with more than 1,000 stable customers. In 2021, Yinwang Group ranked 16th on the list of "Top 225 Global Musical Instruments Industry" published by the well-known magazine Music Trade.
Jiashan Li, executive vice president of China Service Trade Research Institute, said that cultural trade is the import and export of international cultural products and services, involving trade in goods, services and intellectual property rights, and is an important part of international trade. With the rapid development of China’s foreign cultural trade, the export of cultural products in China has been in the forefront of the world for many years, forming a number of cultural enterprises, products and brands with international influence.
According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, in 2021, the import and export volume of cultural products in China was US$ 155.81 billion, up by 43.4%, and the import and export volume of cultural services was US$ 44.22 billion, up by 24.3%. Among them, China cultural enterprises have developed rapidly in the fields of film and television drama, online literature, online audio-visual and creative products, and related cultural products and services are popular. Judging from the destination of China’s cultural trade, the United States, Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Japan are in the forefront of the export market; The import markets mainly include Germany, France, the United States and Japan. It is worth mentioning that in recent years, the scale of foreign cultural trade between China and countries and regions along the Belt and Road has gradually expanded, especially the import and export volume of publications, arts and crafts, collectibles and cultural goods has increased rapidly. The scale of China’s foreign cultural trade has grown steadily, and its structure has been continuously optimized. It has formed a trade pattern dominated by general trade, which has promoted the upgrading of cultural industries and the continuous optimization of foreign trade structure.
How to further expand the breadth and depth of China’s foreign cultural trade after stepping on the step of $200 billion? The Opinions of 27 departments focused on the high-quality development of foreign cultural trade and identified seven aspects and 28 measures. According to the relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Commerce, the Opinions focus on deepening the reform and opening up in the cultural field, activating new kinetic energy for innovation and development, stimulating the development vitality of market players, expanding the network of cooperation channels, and strengthening organizational guarantee, so as to strengthen top-level design and overall coordination, promote institutional mechanism reform and content form innovation, and promote the scale growth and structural optimization of cultural trade, so as to tap the development potential of foreign cultural trade. The Opinions also set the development goals of foreign cultural trade in the coming period, namely: the scale of foreign cultural trade is growing steadily, the structure is continuously optimized, and the proportion of high value-added cultural services exports in foreign cultural trade is steadily increasing; By 2025, a number of cultural and trade professional service platforms covering the whole country will be built, and a number of internationally influential digital cultural platforms and industry leading enterprises will be formed.
Digital cultural trade has become a pioneer in "going out to sea"
Domestic games such as Genshin Impact’s "the glory of the king" are popular in overseas markets, and many games featuring classical "Chinese style" sell well on internationally renowned game platforms such as STEAM … … Online games and e-sports products are becoming the pioneers of cultural products in China.
According to the Game Industry Report of China from January to June 2022 released by the Game Industry Research Institute of China Audio-Visual and Digital Publishing Association, in the first half of this year, the actual sales revenue of China’s self-developed games in overseas markets reached 8.989 billion US dollars, up 6.16% year-on-year.
The popularity of online games overseas is a microcosm of the fiery digital culture trade in China. In addition to publications, movies and other traditional cultural products, China cultural enterprises have entered the field of digital culture, constantly creating new "IP" and realizing "overtaking in corners".
Jiashan Li introduced that China’s cultural products have a certain global competitiveness in digital culture fields such as online games. The mobile phone animation standards and digital art display standards led by China have also been established as international standards. "China’s cultural industry has developed rapidly with the support of digital technology, and the value chain of digital creative industries has been continuously extended, which has promoted the high-quality development of foreign cultural trade."
To promote the innovative development of foreign cultural trade, "digitalization" is the key word. "Vigorously develop digital cultural trade", "enhance the digitalization level of cultural trade" and "encourage the international development of digital cultural platforms" … … Jiashan Li analyzed that cultural trade, especially cultural service trade, naturally carries digital genes and has gradually become a new kinetic energy to stimulate global cultural and economic growth. "The Opinions adapt to the general trend of iterative updating of digital technology and rapid development of digital economy, and point out the new direction of cultural trade development in the digital age."
According to reports, the state has identified a series of measures to encourage and guide, including supporting the development of new formats such as digital art, cloud exhibition and immersive experience, and actively cultivating export competitive advantages in the fields of online literature, digital publishing, online broadcasting and e-sports; Give full play to the functional advantages of the comprehensive bonded zone policy, support the development of "two-headed" digital content processing business, and encourage enterprises to provide services such as printing, translation, dubbing, editing and post-production for films, cartoons and games produced overseas. The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Commerce said that the Opinions promoted the digitalization of cultural trade from different angles, which will drive the digital transformation of traditional industries and activate new kinetic energy for the innovation and development of cultural trade.
How will the cultural and trade professional service platform and digital cultural platform mentioned in the Opinions be built? Among them, the "one-stop" cultural trade service platform will provide cultural trade enterprises with national policies, market information, legal services, technical support, talent recruitment and other services, and at the same time make good use of minority language talent resources to provide professional support for cultural products, services and standards to go global. At the same time, the state encourages the international development of digital cultural platforms, guides relevant platform enterprises to develop healthily, supports small and medium-sized enterprises to innovate in technology, content and mode, and encourages platform enterprises to explore the international market, enhance the overseas influence of platforms, and promote the export of cultural products and services.
Solving the "Financing Difficulties" of Cultural Trade Enterprises
Foreign cultural trade often takes a long time to gain something, and it is also difficult to cultivate brands. What guidance and support can market players get?
National cultural export base is becoming an important carrier to cultivate new advantages in cultural trade competition. Since 2018, the Ministry of Commerce and others have successively published two batches of national cultural export bases, including 29 places including Xuhui District of Shanghai, Zigong City of Sichuan Province and Dongcheng District of Beijing, aiming at exerting the functions of gathering, leading and radiating, cultivating cultural enterprises with strong international competitiveness and forming an international cultural trading platform with strong radiation.
Since it first went abroad in 1990 and held a lantern show in Singapore, Zigong Lantern has been exported to more than 80 countries and regions, accounting for over 90% of the international market share. Promote cooperation in projects such as "Service Trade Fair+Lantern Festival" and "Universiade+Lantern Festival", and expand the fund pool of performance bond for exchange rate hedging of "Denghuibao" & HELIP; … This year, Zigong has built a national cultural export base based on the characteristic industries of colored lanterns, and put forward the goals of completing an annual investment of 1 billion yuan, holding more than 60 overseas lantern exhibitions, and granting loans to cultural enterprises exceeding 200 million yuan. According to the deployment of the Opinions, all localities will start with optimizing the business environment and improving support measures, extend the industrial chain, improve the service chain, and build cultural export bases with their own characteristics.
The problem of "financing difficulty" of cultural trade enterprises has been concerned, and more targeted measures will be ushered in.
In terms of improving the input mechanism, the financial policy will support the construction of national cultural export bases and enterprises to explore overseas markets, expand the export of cultural services, and cultivate key enterprises and cultural brands. The role of service trade innovation and development guidance fund will also provide financing support for qualified cultural trade enterprises.
In terms of innovative financial services, while encouraging financial institutions to innovate financial products and services, they will support qualified cultural and trade enterprises to go public for financing, and raise funds by issuing corporate bonds, corporate bonds and debt financing instruments for non-financial enterprises.
In addition, the export tax exemption or zero tax rate policy of cultural services will support qualified enterprises to participate in the identification of technologically advanced service enterprises and enjoy relevant preferential corporate income tax policies; Qualified cultural trade enterprises will enjoy the convenience measures related to advanced customs certification enterprises. Relevant departments will also support cultural trade enterprises to carry out cross-border RMB settlement business and support banks to provide better cross-border settlement services for cultural trade enterprises.
Good timing and good policies depend on how enterprises seize opportunities. Yan Guohua, vice president of Yinwang Technology, said that in the face of multiple motivations and pressures, cultural enterprises need to reshape their core competitiveness with products with high cultural content, high technology content and high added value as a breakthrough. "The Opinions put forward that giving play to the exemplary role of key national cultural export enterprises and cultivating key enterprises and cultural brands will encourage us to continuously promote the digital transformation of cultural enterprises and accelerate the implementation of overseas strategic layout, so as to promote China’s high-quality cultural products ‘ Go out ’ Keep working hard. " Yan Guohua said.