Written by Li Min / Translated by Xu Zhiliang

Animation Culture: A Key Cooperation Project Promoted by CAEXPO

Written by Li Min / Translated by Xu Zhiliang

You may have heard of some popular animation characters like Japan’s Detective Konan, Korea’s Little Penguin Pororo, and America’s Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, which, in some sense, have been seen as an international common language promoting cultural exchanges across the world.

Besides contributing to cultural communication, animation images have already created a fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars for the relevant enterprises through various means such as animation-derived game products and authorized ancillary products as the animation industry, with a large-scale market, continues to develop and improve, becoming an important driver of many countries’ economic growth. Although the development foundations of animation industry in China and ASEAN countries are relatively weaker than those of European and American countries, as well as Japan and South Korea, the turnover of China has topped hundreds of millions of yuan in the era of Internet, supported by a series of incentives, while ASEAN countries represented by Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia have been playing a leading role in the advance of regional animation industry.

Furthermore, bilateral relations between China and ASEAN countries continue to be closer than ever before, thus fostering a favorable environment for cooperation between the two fast-growing animation markets. Over the years, China and ASEAN have been making unceasing efforts to explore viable approaches to cooperation in the fi eld of animation, from overseas screening to coproducing animated movies and from the holding of China-ASEAN ACG (an award for outstanding practice and performance of organizations and individuals specializing in animation) to the launch of regular animation programmes, with the aim of securing the optimal meeting point of mutual interests, during which CAEXPO, a significant platform for multi-field cooperation, has also made a signifi cant contribution. In September 2016, China Animation Cooperation Agreement was signed by China’s Guangxi People’s Broadcasting Station and Lao National TV at China-ASEAN Roundtable on Radio, Film & TV Cooperation under the theme of the 13thCAEXPO, based on which the two sides will jointly start a fixed TV programme named as “China Animation” to show two episodes of Chinese animated movies dubbed by them; it is worth mentioning that the programme was premiered in Vientiane, Laos as scheduled on October 15, 2016.

In addition to a series of forums and activities aimed at pragmatically boosting China-ASEAN cooperation in the field of animation, culture exhibition -- an additional item showing cultural essence, animation games, media & publications and so on -- was held during the 11thCAEXPO in 2014, during which theme-based activities like ChinaJoy Cosplay Carnival were carried out in the animation games pavilion.

“Some achievements of animated games were displayed in the cultural exhibition pavilions set up at previous CAEXPO’s previous exhibitions, but a majority of them were oriented towards simple B2C transactions and activities relevant to Cosplay; although they attracted the attention of a number of visitors, with a higher level of visibility, animation festival has been regarded as an effective approach by foreign countries to making much more progress in terms of urban tourism, urban culture and animation,”said Mr. Jiang Linfeng, general manager of Nanning Fengzhi Media, adding that CAEXPO, with excellent platforms, abundant resources and great influence, would undoubtedly make resource allocation optimized by creating more opportunities for China-ASEAN cooperation in the fi eld of animation.

Mr. Jiang noted that China-ASEAN Games Animation Festival, a platform for producers, publishers and distributors to exchange ideasand negotiate with each other via B2B, will be held by the China-ASEAN Expo Secretariat in April 2017. Fengzhi Media, one of the major organizers of this festival, will be mainly responsible for its planning, promotion and marketing. For the preparations, Mr. Jiang said, “We have acquired a large number of data and resources available in the process of overseas distribution. To date, we have established a database collecting information relevant to over 300 producers and distributors in this fi eld in ASEAN, ensuring that technical assistance based on the analysis of big data can be accessible to animation enterprises. Now some 200 animation exhibitors, including China’s Tencent and Alpha, are expected to make their appearance at the festival.”

FZ Entertainment obtained abundant data and resources in the release overseas. Jiang linfeng (Right 1st), general manager of FZ Entertainment

Mr. Jiang also pointed out that Chinese animation products and games have been very popular in ASEAN countries, where numerous local people share some cultural affi nity with Chinese. Due to the continuous development of Chinese enterprises involving animation games over the years, a more convenient and fast way of going global and exploring the ASEAN market is needed, for which the coming festival could serve as the very platform for Chinese enterprises to obtain information about the principal channels and resources of ASEAN’s animation industry, which is the most direct way to establish business contacts with counterparts.

“Guangxi, especially Nanning, is a gathering place for talented people proficient in ASEAN languages, places greater emphasis on the promotion of industrial parks, and enjoys various preferential policies, which are the core competitive advantages to make Nanning the gateway city, where more Chinese domestic enterprises producing animation games can maintain and increase business contacts with partners and consumers in ASEAN countries. Thus, an industrial cluster covering all kinds of animation products will be set up in Nanning,” said Mr. Jiang.