China's cultural industry sees fast revenue growth in Q1

BEIJING - China's cultural industry saw rapid revenue growth in the first quarter of 2017 driven partly by booming cultural services, official data showed Friday.

The sector's combined revenue amounted to 1.99 trillion yuan ($289 billion), up 11 percent year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.

In 2016, the growth rate was 8.6 percent for the first quarter and 7.5 percent for the whole year.

The NBS tracks around 52,000 companies across 10 cultural sectors - six in services and four in manufacturing.

Revenue from information transmission services increased the most, by 29.4 percent year on year, followed by 16.8 percent for entertainment services and 15.8 percent for artistic services.

The more developed eastern region contributed 74.4 percent of the total revenue, no change from last year.