Beijing sees booming cultural, creative industries

BEIJING - Beijing's cultural and creative industries continued to grow steadily with total revenue hitting 1.36 trillion yuan ($215 billion) in the first 11 months of 2017, a local official said Thursday.

The figure indicated an annual growth of 9.4 percent, said Zhao Lei, Party chief of the State-owned Cultural Assets Supervision and Administration of Beijing municipal government.

Beijing planned to build 30 cultural and creative industries parks since 2016. By 2017, the capital city has completed construction of 21 cultural parks covering 400,000 square meters, by transforming old factories and wholesale markets.

Of the country's 58 listed cultural and creative firms, Beijing has 21, with a total market value of more than 300 billion yuan.

Beijing will set up special funds to aid the development of the cultural and creative industries, according to Zhao.