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The fifth China Cultural and Financial Innovation Summit, held on Oct 26 as part of the China Beijing International Cultural and Creative Industry Expo, gathered investors and culturally creative companies seeking financing, in order to promote their cooperation, the summit's organizers said.
"The summit is a good opportunity for cultural and financial industries to communicate, discuss, cooperate and achieve win-win results," said Mei Song, director at the Beijing Cultural and Creative Industry Promotion Center, which hosted the fifth summit.
Mei said that cultural projects are the foundation within this cooperation with the financial sector, because excellent projects naturally attract capital.
The Beijing Cultural and Creative Industry Promotion Center has helped investors and banks to find such projects and has also helped cultural companies to improve their projects in the past years, he said.
The fifth summit introduced the top 50 cultural and creative companies in Beijing worth investing in, as recommended by experts. The move aimed to help the companies find financial support from investors and banks, the summit's organizers said.
Mei said more than half of the 120 companies recommended at the past four summits have become noted in the industry. One of them was comedy group Mahua FunAge Production Co Ltd.
The event also offered a promotional activity where seven cultural projects, ranging from artwork trade and creative design to software development, were introduced and promoted to investors.
Attendees at the summit included representatives from the Beijing branches of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of Beijing, as well as executives from Shanghai-based Tongkong Investment Group and Hangzhou-based Zhejiang Zheshang Venture Capital Co Ltd, and related authorities.
Zhang Aimin, senior expert at the Beijing branch of ICBC, said that the branch has supported the development of cultural industries in recent years. The organization provided more than 2,000 cultural companies with more than 65 billion yuan ($9.6 billion) of financing during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-15), according to Zhang.
He said the branch currently offers cultural businesses comprehensive financing services, including loans and equity financing.
Xu Li, founder of Beijing Yangguang Jiacheng Investment Co, said she thinks that investment in China's cultural industries remains in the early stages, and that the industries requires further, concentrated capital investment.
In the first half of 2016, the film and TV drama industry was the most popular cultural industry among investors, followed by live streaming and animation businesses, Xu said.
Insiders said that cultural and creative sectors in Beijing have developed quickly in recent years and that, as of 2015, the city was home to more than 200,000 cultural companies.
Beijing Culture Equity Exchange Co Ltd, an equity trading institution, was set up in early 2015 to assist cultural companies in acquiring financing.
In 2017, the city government will further improve cooperation between cultural industries and other sectors, including financial services, they said.
(China Daily 11/01/2016 page12)
