Guilin Special

Creativity fairs really attract investors

By Hao Nan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-15 08:29

The China (Guilin) Creativity and Cartoon Fair, opened its second session in the tourism city on Oct 16. Provided to China Daily

Guilin, the popular tourist spot, with its ethnic variety, in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, is now seeing a new type of visitor - investors - thanks to some creativity fairs.

One of these was the second China (Guilin) Creativity and Cartoon Fair, which opened on Oct 16. It was sponsored by the Guilin government and organized by the Guilin High-Tech Industrial Zone's administration committee.

The first creativity and cartoon fair, held in September of 2009, saw nine contracts, worth more than 500 million yuan ($75 million), signed.

This year's event was bigger in both size and scale, with a total of 12 contracts signed during the three-day event. The total value reached 2.09 billion yuan.

This year's 22 activities included a parade of famous cartoon characters and animation production sales as well as costume plays and shows, a children's painting contest and video games.

They attracted about 100 companies from across China, which signed eight new investment deals in green energy, telecommunications, website construction and human resources development.

They included three animation projects with investment of about 60 million yuan and a tourism project with an investment of 15 million yuan.

There were also three forums for specialists and scholars in the fields of tourism, animation and other industries both from China and abroad.

The vice-president of the China Publishing Group, Wang Tao spoke at a culture industry forum, where he called for the amalgamation of culture companies in Guilin to improve the city's competitiveness.

Other delegates from Disney Canada, Communication University of China and the Comic Fans magazine attended an animation forum where they discussed domestic market operations and the industry's development abroad.

The organizer, the Guilin High-Tech Industrial Zone, is the province's only creativity demonstration base where they integrate R&D and mass production.

The zone, with its human and technology resources from colleges, research institutes and testing centers, led the province this year in the number of patents.

"Through preferential policies and financial support for businesses here, we've made an effort to enlarge the economy and push for growth of companies, mainly those in creativity, electronic information, new materials, software and other pillar industries," said Zhao Deming, head of the zone's administrative committee.

The zone's reputation has grown since that first creativity festival last year and a large number of companies have moved in.

During the first nine months of this year, the zone saw 62 new technology and creativity companies, including 10 prominent cartoon producers and two Internet giants - Baidu and Tianya.

In addition, 97 deals were signed with overseas companies, with more than $80 million in foreign investment. That was an increase of 79.4 percent year-on-year.

Domestic investment amounted to 4.24 billion yuan, up 33.8 percent from the same period of last year.

Some very large projects have also helped improve the innovation and research capabilities of the zone.

It "possesses an increasing appeal for investors", Zhao said.

(China Daily 12/15/2010 page15)