Established in February 2000, Poly Culture has become one of the largest domestic cultural enterprises, with its business spanning into the areas including performance, theatre management, cultural relics collections, auctions and cinema.

Beijing Poly Theatre Management Co Ltd, one of Poly Culture's subsidiaries, has developed a chain store theatre management business system.

The company now manages 32 first-class theatres across the nation. It has also formed an alliance with a number of major theatres to promote business cooperation, share performance information and establish a national ticketing network.

Last year, Poly's turnover from its culture business was more than 1 billion yuan, said Jiang.

Although this is far from significant when compared with the group's overall revenue of 100 billion yuan last year, the culture industry is of key importance for the group to develop in a sustainable way and greatly helps to build its corporate image, said Chen Hongsheng, chairman of the group.

Almost at the same time Poly Culture was set up, Poly became a household name by acquiring the four famous Yuanmingyuan Park animal heads from foreign auction houses.

The purchase of the lost cultural relics helped the group enhance its brand image as a responsible and patriotic company and enhanced its reputation among customers, said Chen.

"When the group promotes its real estate business across the nation, many people tell Poly employees that they are not worried that Poly construction projects will end up unfinished, since it is such a responsible company," Chen said.

"We acquired the animal heads due to our corporate responsibility."