China Jan-Nov box office hits $2.3b

BEIJING - China's film industry earned $14.35 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) in the box office from January to November, surpassing the 13.12 billion yuan from the whole of 2011.

Speaking at a meeting Tuesday, Nie Chenxi, deputy head of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), also revealed that the country made 686 feature films in the first eleven months, compared with 558 in the whole of 2011.

However, among the eight billion yuan earned in the first half of the year, Chinese films took in only 2.8 billion yuan, down by 4.3 percent year on year. The rest, taken by imported productions, marked a 90.4-percent increase, according to Nie.

Last year, domestic films took in 53.61 percent of the total box office in China, but their share from January to June this year was only 35 percent.

SARFT deputy head Tian Jin said last month that the shrinking market share of domestic movies was due to the increasing number of imported films, which are of better quality and attract a larger audience.

In February, China and the United States agreed on a memorandum of understanding on films in the WTO's China-audiovisual case. According to the memo, 14 more US films will be imported into China annually, in addition to the original 20-film quota.