Business Alert – China

A ceremony marking the inauguration of the Qingdao Digital Publishing Forum was recently held at the 1919 Creative Industrial Park in Qingdao. The meeting adopted the Articles of Association of the Qingdao Digital Publishing Forum, elected the chairman of the forum and approved nominations for members of its presidium and secretariat.

Digital publishing is an emerging cultural industry. Combining publishing with network communications, information technology and other sectors, it has huge market potential and will have a profound impact on reading habits, entertainment and social harmony. The Decision on Several Important Issues Concerning the Deepening of Cultural System Reforms and the Promotion of the Great Development and  Prosperity of Socialist Culture adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee calls for efforts to promote the restructuring of cultural industries, develop and expand traditional cultural industries such as publishing and distribution, film and television production, printing, advertising, performing arts, entertainment and exhibitions, and accelerate the development of emerging cultural industries such as cultural creative industries, digital publishing and mobile multimedia. It also calls for efforts to integrate the cultural industries with the development of other industries, raise the cultural content of related industries, extend the cultural industry chain, and increase their value added.

Qingdao enjoys a good foundation for the development of digital publishing, with the Qingdao Publishing Group and the Qingdao News Group providing rich resources for the content of digital publishing. The city is well-served by the Qingdao branches of China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, Qingdaonews.com and other well-developed mass communications media. Companies like Haier and Hisense boast strong R&D capability and brand advantage. As the second demonstration city for copyright protection in China, Qingdao pays great attention to copyright protection. Thus, Qingdao should be able to form an industry chain that combines content with media and end-user and provide strong support to the development of the digital publishing industry.