Shandong is committed to developing its animation business and making it one of their most promising industries.

The province has established three state-level animation industry bases in Jinan, Qingdao and Yantai, where priority is given to video games, digital videos and online entertainment programs.

More than 440 companies are involved in video game production with 180 of them based in Jinan. It has become a national cartoon game development base and the companies generate annual revenues of more than 1.5 billion yuan ($236.1 million).

The province has more than 800 animation and comics companies, including an animation awards winner who has produced a 104-episode TV-animation series about Confucius.

The series depicts the life experiences of the philosopher of ancient China, Confucius, and was one of the top Chinese animation picks of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

A number of creativity culture projects are now under construction in Qingdao, including China's first 3D animation base, the Fantawild cartoon-theme park and a large animated film studio.

The animation industry sales in Qingdao alone are expected to amount to 5 billion yuan and the sales value of the cartoon business will amount to more than 20 billion yuan by 2015. These figures were announced recently at the Shandong creativity industry conference.

The rapid growth of the animation industry has attracted a number of prominent companies to the province including South Korea's SBS TV Group and the Shenzhen Huaqiang Group. They have put a total of 3 billion yuan into video games, cartoons, and personnel training.

By Wang Qian (chinadaily.com.cn)

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Rakhee