Beijing is implementing a bailout plan for the culture industry. This is the country's eleventh bailout plan after steel, auto, textile and the like. It's only after opening up that culture has been regarded as an industry.
In the old, planned economy, the government provided culture products and services. These were considered as ideologic product, rather than a commercial product.
This changed after the Opening Up. Since then, the entertainment, movie, TV and book industries have witnessed significant development.
Cai Wu, Minister of Culture said "It's an inevitable question that whether resources could be allocated by the market in the Culture industry. We realize culture products and services have double attributes: they belong to ideology, as well as social commodity."
The government formally put forward the concept of a "culture industry" in 2000. And while traditional industries have shrunk due to the financial crisis, the culture industry is bullish. Output grew by nearly 20 percent in the first quarter of this year, much higher than the GDP growth in the same period.
Professor Zhang Yiwu, Peking University said "The Culture industry accounts for a small part in the country's total GDP. Now people have begun to realize its importance, so the bailout plan is implemented at the proper time. China's culture industry is very likely to skyrocket in the future."
China's culture industry is still in the early stage. US movie box office was nearly 10 billion US dollars in 2008, 18 times as much as in China.
The Bailout plan is due to tackle bottleneck problems in the country's culture industry.
(CCTV September 28, 2009)
