The cultural reforms in Shenzhen have been given strategic
importance second only to the economic reforms that have made the
city a boomtown from scratch, senior city officials told a meeting
yesterday.
The meeting, attended by deputy Party chief Li Yizhen and other
officials in charge of culture, came after a national conference on
cultural reforms in Beijing last week, where central government
officials gave the thumbs-up to Shenzhen's initial cultural reform
efforts, and asked the city to blaze a new trial in the
reforms.
Li, deputy secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the
Communist Party of China, said developing the cultural industry
will be a priority of the cultural reforms.
Substantial progress must be made this year in building cultural
industry parks, Li told the meeting, which was also attended by
Wang Jingsheng, director general of the Publicity Department of the
Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the CPC, and Vice Mayor Yan
Xiaopei.
The Second China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry
Fair, to be held in Shenzhen later this year, is on the top of the
authorities' agenda. Li said the government will also increase
spending in constructing cultural facilities and improving cultural
services for the public.
Zhang Xiaohu, director of the Cultural Reform Office under the
Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, said Friday in
Beijing that the creative industries should become a highlight of
Shenzhen's future development, citing the Dafen Oil Painting
Village in Longgang District as an example that the city's cultural
industry is thriving.
(Shenzhen Daily April 4, 2006)
