Related News

Home » Supplement » West Lake Expo

Creative diversity to the fore in new cultural business circle

NEW life is being breathed into three districts in Hangzhou to consolidate creative industry enterprises and instill greater diversity in a sector that is growing at impressive rates, Xu Wenwen reports.As Zhongshan Road is the axis of the Royal Street of the Southern Song Dynasty International Tourism Integration, the road is partitioned into three stretches.

Zhongshan Road M. pedestrian section goes from Drum Tower to Xihu Avenue in the first part and represents "yesterday." The middle part, which is also Zhongshan Road M., starts from Xihu Avenue to Qingchun Road and represents "today." The last stretch is on Zhongshan Road N. from Qingchun Road to Wenhui Road and represents "tomorrow."

Zhongshan Road N. is a historic street running through Hangzhou from north to south with a length of 5 kilometers.

Zhongbei Creative Block on Zhongshan Road N. will be a highlight, which will be finished in three years. The creative block will form a cultural creative business circle composed of three districts - Original Fashion District, Street Fashion District and Passion Fashion District.

The Passion Fashion District, as the most "tomorrow" part, starts at Tiyuchang Road and finishes at Huancheng Road N., and mainly hosts digital media and creative industry.

Digital media technology is embodied in a 3D experience center, the Hangzhou Newspaper Group Building and the Zhejiang Information Building for which construction will start soon.

The creative trade is conceived and organized to allow for diversity, with ideas like a loft department store, cafe in the air, creative hotel and creative transport tools that were all developed by the creative team combined of representatives of Xiacheng District government and China Academy of Art.

Buses and rental bicycles will be the main public transport tools in Zhongshan Road N. after the renovation.

"A loft department store means to attract more stores into one high building, and we'll set up a digital net for them on Taobao.com," said Yu Jian, landscape planning group leader and professor of the China Academy of Art, "so buyers can shop in one building, rather than along a street. Consequently space is saved, the rent is lower and the prices are reasonable too."

However, the government is trying to counteract copied products and pirated audio visual products prevalent in China's electronic and digital field.

To eliminate its root causes and protect the creative trades in Hangzhou, the government has established a Website (www.xcip.gov.cn) as an Internet intellectual property rights public service platform.

On the Website, rights holders and researchers can exchange information, apply for an agency, assess the property, ask for legal aid and safeguard legal rights by giving tips. Every sector is free but a 5-10 percent commission will be charged if the transaction is completed.

"I used to promote my products among my friends and supporting enterprises," Qiu Meili, general manager of www.tr158.com, a Website for software transactions, told a local newspaper.

"Now I can assess the value of intellectual property rights, promote my company and have more chances to transfer the property rights and products," he said.

"A creative trade expo is also planned for next year, and to be distinct from other creative expos it will focus on commercial values more than exhibiting creative goods," said professor Yu.

"Transaction of property rights will be the principal form of trade."

The government has strong reasons to focus on creative industries. A Hangzhou Municipal Cultural Creative Industry Office report earlier this year found that the added value the sector brought to Hangzhou was 2.84 billion yuan (US$416 million), an annual increase of 15.2 percent.

This exceeded the city's GDP during the same period by 8.6 percentage points. Meanwhile, the added value of cultural creative industries accounted for 12.8 percent of Hangzhou's GDP, giving it the top position among the city's 10 key modern service industries.

Also, the added value of eight key sectors in the cultural creation domain was 1,755.2 billion yuan, an increase of 18.1 percent compared to the same period last year, and sharing 61.8 percent of the added value of the whole cultural creative industry.

The education and training industry ranked first with its 573.5 billion yuan, and information service as well as design service was in second and third place, the added-value being 84.4 billion and 339.4 billion yuan respectively.

Though the information industry didn't knock off the education and training industry, it boomed by 49.6 percent compared to the same period last year, far higher than any other industries. Culture leisure tourism and design service industry followed with increases of 27.1 percent and 16.3 percent.




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend