The 2013 China Promotion Fair for Investment in the Wujiang Cultural Industry was recently held in the conference center of Wujiang district. The fair promoted 27 cultural projects with investments totaling 9.85 billion yuan ($1.62 billion). Sixteen cultural projects were signed at the fair with a total investment of 1.21 billion yuan. They covered sectors such as creative design, cultural tourism, animation, and game and software development.

The Wujiang Economic and Technological Development Zone promoted the most projects with a total of five.

As a national economic and technological development zone, the Wujiang development zone takes a lead in the high-tech industry and new industries. The Wujiang cultural industrial park promoted in this fair aims to become an important center for the design of mobile games, animation and technological design, as well as a gathering place of high-tech enterprises and research institutes.

Wujiang also promoted its economic and cultural street, ecological cultural park and tariff-free zone with the intention of combining culture with ecology.

Taihu new city used the theme of tourism to promote projects such as a flower exposition park, resort hotels and amusement park, making efforts to highlight Suzhou’s city construction in the 21st century. Other towns and districts also used their cultural resources to release projects with local style.

For example, Tongli ancient town’s “ancient-style club,” Qidu town’s “happiness e-home ” and Taoyuan town’s wine culture industrial park reflect their local charm.

According to Sun Yueliang, vice-secretary of the commission of Wujiang district, cultural projects play an important role in promoting Wujiang’s service industry. Wujiang is rich in water town culture, which has a lot of development potential.

The Wujiang district government has invested 15 million yuan each year since 2010 to support cultural projects from the top 10 industries, including the creative design industry, cultural tourism industry and publishing industry.

In the first half of 2013, Wujiang’s cultural industry added 4.54 billion yuan of value, with an investment of 2.06 billion yuan. According to the person in charge of the Wujiang district government, Wujiang will upgrade the environment of the cultural industry. It will make efforts to enhance the added value of the cultural industry to account for 7 percent of GDP towards the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan, making the cultural industry a pillar industry of Wujiang district.