Delegates gesture at the Cross-Straits Creative Industry Cooperation and Development Summit held in Fuzhou, East China's Fujian Province, on May 17, 2008.  [chinadaily.com.cn]

"Compared with other cities with creative industries such as Shanghai, Shenzhen or Hangzhou, Fuzhou's advantages lie on its connection with Taiwan province, especially on culture and geography," said Lin pang-Soong, Cultural & Creative Industry Center of National Taiwan Normal University at the meeting.

Lin's view is supported by Pan Yunhe, member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He said the core competitive strength for developing creative industries across the Straits is culture. "Fuzhou's cultural advantage can not be copied by other cities."

In 1999, Fuzhou began to develop creative industries and built the "Fuzhou Software Park," and the government supports the industries via finance, tax and talents. Fuzhou has attracted big companies such as Oracle and CISCO, and has cooperation with Japan and South Korea on cartoons and software design.

Figures provided by the Fujian Association for Science and Technology show Fuzhou realized added value on creative industries of nearly 100 billion yuan ($14.3 billion) in 2007, and in 2006 the added value was 10.4 billion yuan, accounting for 6.2 percent of provincial GDP.

"In China, so many cities are developing creative industries, and it is important for local governments to think clearly about what their advantage is," said Zhao Zizhong, dean of New Media Institute from Communication University of China said at the meeting.

"Some creative industries projects have a development period of maybe three years or even ten years, but some local governments are anxious to develop quickly in their appointed term," said Zhao, "It takes time to cultivate the industries."

Shanghai established its creative industry center in 2004, and is the third largest domestic cartoon producing city in China, while Hangzhou is hoping to turn itself into the center of China's cartoon and animation industry by 2015 with an annual investment of 50 million yuan $7.13 billion.

According to The Creative Economy Report 2008 released on April 24, exports of creative goods from the Chinese mainland surged from $18.4 billion in 1996 to $61.3 billion in 2005, making China the world's top exporter of creative goods with a 19 percent share in the global market.

And China Investment Consulting Net said the domestic cartoon consumption market is at least worth 500 million yuan, and the derivative products are estimated to have 280 billion yuan value.

According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development report, the creative industries involve cultural heritage, visual and performing arts, audiovisual industries, publishing and printed media, new media, design and creative services including advertising and architecture.

By Tu Lei