Cultural industry thriving in old factories(2)

OASIS IN A CULTURAL DESERT

The location of the workshops and their reasonable prices have since attracted many cultural companies encompassing a variety of disciplines.

Director Ju Anqi, who also has a studio in the area, said Xue's park has managed to integrate every step of the film production process, including investment, promotion and distribution.

Establishing similar industrial chains should be emphasized in other cultural industry parks, with upstream and downstream sectors supporting each other, Xue said.

Xue has established nine cultural industry parks thus far, housing 300 cultural enterprises.

The park's residents include the production offices of Shaw Brothers (Hong Kong) Ltd. and the Los Angeles-headquartered Base FX, an Emmy Award-winning visual effects and animation production studio.

The companies based in Xue's parks cover the fields of film-making, contemporary art, advertising, design, music and other cultural sectors, Xue said. Six of the nine parks are located in the CBD.

As of July, the operating revenues of companies based in Xue's parks totaled more than 17 billion yuan (2.73 billion U.S. dollars), according to the Shang Ba Culture Group.

"The ideal location and low costs of old factories are an advantage for developing cultural industrial clusters," said Li Xin, an associate research fellow at Tsinghua University's cultural industry research institute.

"Cultural industry parks in the city's business area are like an oasis in a desert," Xue said, adding that his Shang Ba cultural parks aim to become a leader of and model for the country's cultural industry.