Session on high-quality growth and culture successfully debuts at event

A parallel session on how finance supports high-quality development of the cultural industry was held during the Annual Conference on Financial Street Forum 2022 for the first time.

Beijing is the national cultural center, said Mo Gaoyi, head of the Publicity Department of the Beijing Committee of the Communist Party of China.

He noted that in 2021, the added value of Beijing's cultural industry accounted for 10.5 percent of the capital's GDP, higher than the national average of 4.3 percent. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the capital has introduced a number of measures to support the recovery and development of the city's cultural industry and tourism.

With the support of financial institutions, Beijing has implemented many preferential policies to relieve burdens on cultural enterprises, poured money into reducing costs of these enterprises and launched special financial products for rural homestay owners, Mo added.

"The cultural and tourism industries are expected to generate not only incomes but also creative ideas. To this end, our nation is making efforts to improve the system of these industries, promote the integration of digital technology and cultural tourism industries, and nurture major projects that can drive industrial development," said Miao Muyang, director-general of the department of industrial development of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

"Culture and tourism are now intertwined with technological innovation and application. In recent years, new concepts like the metaverse and virtual reality figures have attracted much attention," Miao said.

Miao added that in recent years, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism has worked with the People's Bank of China to help cultural and tourism enterprises address problems brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and recover from them. As part of its effort to upgrade investment and financing policies, 31 cultural and financial service centers have been built, which give guidance on the construction of major cultural and tourism projects.

The ministry is also striving to include tourism infrastructure in estate investment trusts and funds, Miao said.

Xicheng district, where the capital's majority of financial institutions and cultural industries are located, has seen steady growth in its cultural industries against the headwinds of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Sun Shuo, head of Xicheng district.

He said that in 2021, 523 cultural and related businesses above designated size in Xicheng district achieved a revenue of 99.86 billion yuan (13.99 billion), up 8.7 percent year-on-year, and a profit of 8.52 billion yuan, an increase of 9.9 percent over 2020.

A total of 13 municipal-level cultural industrial parks have sustained significant growth. Many cultural brands were set up and earned publicity. For example, the beautiful white pagoda inside the Miaoying Temple in Xicheng district has become a popular spot.

This year, Xicheng has rolled out 10 measures for the high-quality development of the cultural industry. It also designed a mechanism to compensate for losses incurred in the financing process of micro, small and medium-sized cultural enterprises, Sun said.

"Financing is a long-standing problem facing SMEs," Sun said. This sentiment was echoed by Sun Zhen, chairman of Beijing Yuanlong Yato Cultural Dissemination, which designed Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics mascot Bing Dwen Dwen.

"Our company has made money from the sales of Bing Dwen Dwen. But looking at the bigger picture, cultural and creative industries in the nation are still short of money. Most of them are micro or small-sized with very few assets that can be mortgaged," he said.

To solve this problem, officials said at the session that Xicheng district will leverage resources of the Beijing Stock Exchange, which provides financial support for innovation-oriented SMEs. The district will also take the lead in issuing 10 policies on better serving the BSE. It will soon sign a long-term strategic cooperation agreement with the BSE and build a service center in Financial Street in Xicheng.

yinruowei@chinadaily.com.cn