Content drives online culture boom

Experts in Wuzhen discuss the social responsibility and potential of China's internet industry

Online culture is flourishing in China, according to Gao Xiang, vice-minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China.

Gao was speaking on Thursday at a sub-forum of the Fifth World Internet Conference on online cultural exchange and sharing in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province.

According to Gao, the number of netizens in China reached 802 million in June, 609 million of whom watch videos online.

Users of online games, livestreaming services and literature-reading platforms have each exceeded 400 million.

The market size of the online cultural industry has been expanding continuously, with online games generating revenues of 235.5 billion yuan ($34 billion) last year. Online video produced 52.1 billion yuan, livestreaming approached 40 billion yuan, online music broke 17.5 billion yuan, and online literature saw a turnover of 12.8 billion yuan.

Equally, export sales of online cultural productions are also increasing year-by-year.

As a demonstrative example of an information economy, Zhejiang province has shown great progress in the field, according to Feng Fei, executive vice-governor of Zhejiang.

By the end of 2017, the province's core digital industry accounted for 9.1 percent of its GDP, with the overall digital economy taking up more than 17 percent. The latter contributed nearly 40 percent to Zhejiang's economic growth, Feng says.

With the growing potential in content innovation, online cultural development is on the cusp of new opportunities and challenges, one of which that needs to be overcome, Gao notes, is the building of a safe and positive cyberspace where younger netizens' healthy development can be guaranteed.