Today's PRC Pt III: Building a Creative Economy

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 5/03/2016 06:49:00 PM
Yes, Kung Fu Panda 3 qualifies as a PRC production.
The current Chinese leadership's plans to make a transition from a manufacturing- and export-oriented economy to a services- and domestic-oriented one are well-known by now. Encouragingly, the so-called "creative economy" may be coming online just when the old-style economy appears to be faltering. So the creative economy's scale is nowhere near that of manufacture-for-export yet, but China does have to start from somewhere:
The new engines of China’s economy are humming as social media, movie theaters, karaoke bars and art galleries shrug off the nation’s slowdown, according to a new report from the nation’s statistics authority.

First-quarter revenue from cultural industry companies rose 8.6 percent in the from a year earlier to 1.67 trillion yuan ($258 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. The report based on surveys of 47,000 companies is the first such quarterly tally and comes as the agency strives to improve coverage of the "new economy."

Revenue from "cultural information transmission services," which include Internet companies and some satellite and telecommunication providers, surged 27.8 percent from the first quarter of 2015. Firms in "cultural, leisure and entertainment services" including travel agencies, parks and karaoke bars, saw sales jump 25 percent.
In some ways, the contributions from marketing culture are still understated in China. Remember, China ranks fourth worldwide in the number of tourists it attracts. It is also mentioned in the article above that the Kung Fu Panda 3 movie became the highest-grossing film in China recently. This outcome is likely due to the extensive partnership its producer had with PRC-based firms:
The record is an important milestone for [Jeffrey] Katzenberg and DreamWorks Animation. Kung Fu Panda 3 is the first film from the studio's burgeoning Shanghai-based venture, Oriental DreamWorks, which was established in 2012 in partnership with two state-backed Chinese companies with a combined investment of $350 million in cash and intellectual capital.
If it helps with China's transition, then I don't see any harm in it.