Bringing culture year round through movies and tourism

The local government wants to make the zone an eco-friendly center of the culture business.

It expects to have a service sector with an output of 75 billion yuan by 2015, about 50 billion yuan of that from culture, accounting for around 62 percent of the regional GDP. Average annual growth is expected to be 38 percent.

The culture business will play a leading role in future zone development, according to the policy makers, with industrial parks for handicrafts, animation, and movie production.

These involve many projects: a digital publication center, an international animation trade center, and a rural-themed movie and TV drama production base.

The movie and TV drama production is expected to be worth more than 12 billion yuan by 2015. The figure for the animation and video game business will be more than 13 billion yuan.

Tourism

Tourism and leisure are also in the zone's sights, with its major attractions like Xinli Lake, the Jingyuetan National Forest Park, the Imperial Palace of the Manchu State Museum, and Changchun Agricultural Fair Park.

Ice and snow will be one of the key features since the city is very cold in winter. Other tourist programs include wetlands, business and shopping facilities and a golf course in the forest area.

Tourism is expected to bring more than 30 billion yuan to the zone by 2015.

A number of international events have already involved Jingyue, like the Vasaloppet International Ski Festival, which was developed in Sweden around 90 years ago, to commemorate a Swedish king and national hero Gustav Vasa. There is also the Lidingoloppet, a long-distance foot race, also from Sweden, to celebrate the summer solstice.

These events, along with other conventions and fairs, will have an output value of more than 7 billion yuan.

(China Daily 04/20/2011 page14)