An exhibition at Songzhuang Art Zone.

Artist Zhang Dali and his works.

Antiques at Panjiayuan Market.

Zhang Yidi’s works often criticize reality in a humorous way, and such artists abound at Songzhuang.

Songzhuang Art Zone, in the eastern suburbs of Beijing, has attracted about 1.000 artists.

A brush pen store in Beijing’s Liulichang Culture Street.

Concept and Cause
It’s estimated that Beijing is home to about 900,000 practitioners in the creative industries. A newly-rising sector in China, in recent years the term “creative industries” has taken its place as a bona fide buzz word. Indeed, beyond China, the industry has expanded as a defined segment for more than a decade.
The term “creative industries” may refer to an industry by which individual creativity, skills and talent generate wealth, increase employment, and improve the overall living environment. The commercial genre generally includes advertising, architectural art, artworks, antiques, fashion design, films, interactive software, music, performing arts, publishing, and television and radio broadcast. Also among this category: tourism, museums, art galleries, cultural heritage and sports.
In China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shanghai are longer-standing cradles of the creative industry, while in Beijing, the segment was officially recognized in December 2005, when the municipal government implemented the policy of developing creative industries on the basis of a thorough analysis of the social and economic development situation of the capital. In the past three years, thanks to the support of government, Beijing’s creative segment has expanded at an impressive rate.
In 2007, the total asset value of Beijing’s creative industries was estimated at 726 billion yuan, up 17.9 percent over the previous year; the income realized was 460.16 billion yuan, up 27.3 percent; the value-added realized was 99.26 billion yuan, accounting for 10.6 percent of the local output value of Beijing; the profit earned was 21.62 billion yuan, up 50.7 percent; and the tax revenue turned in was 21.67 billion yuan, up 28.3 percent.
According to international standards, an industry whose output value accounts for at least 6 percent of the GDP may be considered a pillar sector of the economy.
Culture and Consumption
Chen Dong, deputy director of the Publicity Department of Beijing Municipal Party Committee, believes that Beijing enjoys exceptional advantages in the realm of the commercially creative.
Firstly, the functional orientation of Beijing as the nation’s cultural center lends clear advantages to the city in the development of its industry of cultural creativity. Beijing is a world-famous historical and cultural city, boasting a 3,000-year history and a capital designation for 800 years. The development of the cultural creative industry will echo the present functional orientation of the national capital as an “international modern livable city with cultural magnificence.”
Secondly, Beijing is located at the core of the national cultural market, and its huge cultural consumption potential will serve as a powerful engine driving the development of the cultural creative industry. The development of this new sector is also an internal demand and inevitable outcome of the enhanced diversification of people’s cultural life and the upgrading of the consumption structure. In 2005, Beijing’s per capita GDP topped $5,000, and in 2006 this figure rose to top $6,000. Concurrently, the consumption structure of the city’s urban and rural residents changed greatly. In 2006, the per capita expenditure of urban Beijing citizens in education, culture and recreation was 2,515 yuan, accounting for 17 percent of the per capita consumption expenditure, up by 15 percent over the previous year. Influenced by the changing social demands, the cultural creative industry – largely represented by software, Internet, artwork transaction, tourism, and leisure recreation – has developed rapidly.
Thirdly, the abundant cultural resources possessed by Beijing are a clear advantage in the development of cultural creative industry. Beijing has complete cultural facilities and a great number of publishing agencies, and its TV and film production accounts for more than 50 percent of the nation’s total. Of the 3,322 historical cultural sites scattered around the city, six have been inscribed to the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list. By the end of 2006, museums registered in Beijing had come to 133. Boasting 77 institutes of higher learning and 353 scientific research academies, Beijing is an incubator for creative professionals.
Fourthly, after 30 years of reform and opening-up, Beijing has established a solid material foundation required for the development of creative industries. During the Tenth Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005), the local output value of Beijing grew by 12.1 percent annually. In 2006, the city’s local output value topped 772 billion yuan; the per capita output value reached $6,210; and the local revenue income increased from 45.42 billion yuan in 2001 to 111.72 billion yuan.
Riding the global wave of the accelerating creative industry, Beijing has set forth her industry orientation on the basis of her cultural and technological resource advantages. Such an orientation provides a guideline for growth, while creating channels for the inflow of new vitality to the ancient city.
“Beijing, as the national center for politics and culture, is more suitable for developing cultural and creative industry than any other city,” says Prof. Chen Shaofeng, deputy director of Peking University Cultural Industry Institute. “Its cultural output value should be at least twice that of any other place.”
Cultivation and Cash
In April 2006, the municipal government of Beijing established a leading team for the development of the creative industries. The group’s mission was to lay the groundwork for a supportive platform enabling the optimized development of the cultural creative industry and deliberating and formulating the development strategy, key policies, large investment and important projects for the city’s cultural creative industry. Subsequently, in accordance with guidelines established by the leading team, all districts and counties established leading organs in the industry. According to actual requirements, the municipal government has instituted the Beijing Development Planning for Cultural Creative Industry in the 11th Five-Year Plan Period, the Beijing Policies for Promoting the Development of Cultural Creative Industry, and a series of supporting policies. And the promulgation of the Beijing Direction for Investment in Cultural Creative Industry provides a clear and useful road map for investment from widely ranging sources of capital.
In 2006, the municipal government established a public-oriented fund for the development of cultural creative industry, which has since obtained an earmark of 500 million yuan from the fiscal revenue annually; and a three-year special fund of 500 million yuan was set for infrastructure construction in the congregation areas of cultural creative. In addition, since 2007, the government has promulgated a series of relative policies, providing financial support for the industry.
Meanwhile, the China Beijing International Cultural & Creative Industry Expo, an annual event initiated in 2006, has functioned in introducing key commercially creative projects, promoting information exchange, signing cooperative agreement, and providing a platform for domestic and international cultural trade. Collectively, the previous two expos concluded 404 agreements with a total investment and trading volume of $7.59 billion.
Concurrently, a group of congregation complexes for cultural creatives was developed, offering a favorable condition for the expansion of the industry. During the 11th Five-Year Plan Period (2006-2010), Beijing plans to construct 30 such complexes, and so far 21 have been recognized as municipal-level complexes, including the now world-famous 798 Art Zone, a modern art district developed within a complex of renovated and retooled factory space, and the creative village in Songzhuang, probably the world’s largest painters’ village, with nearly 1,000 artists from around the country.
The boom of Beijing’s creative industries mirrors similar rapid growth in recent years throughout the entire country. In his book The Creative Economy, Economist John Howkins points out that each day the global creative industry generates $22 billion and the aggregate value is expanding at the rate of 5 percent each year. China is now keeping pace.