Promising future in animation

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An annual event in Shandong province has been attracting thousands cartoon fans from China and abroad who want to look at local animation productions, video games, and plays.

This year, the 13th Qilu Animation Exhibition was held in Ji'nan, Shandong's capital, during the seven-day National Day holiday.

The province's animation business has had some robust growth in recent years and has become one of its most promising industries.

Shandong currently has more than 800 animation and comics companies that have produced some award-winners, one of which is a 104-episode TV-animation series on the life of Confucius.

It depicts the life experiences of Confucius, the philosopher of ancient China, and was one of the top Chinese animation picks of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

It also took best Asian Animated Works Prize, at the MIPTV, the audiovisual festival, in Cannes, France, in April.

It is expected to be used in 300 Confucius Institute classes as teaching material, around the world.

The province has established three State-level animation industry bases in the cities of Ji'nan, Qingdao and Yantai, where priority is being given to video games, digital videos and on-line entertainment programs.

More than 440 of its companies are involved in video game production, with 180 of them based in Ji'nan, where they generate more than 1.5 billion yuan in revenues annually. This has made the city a national cartoon game development base.

The Walt Disney Company has reached an agreement with the local government to establish a creative research and development center to the west of Jinan.

The city of Yantai, which is located on the north coast of the province, has made great progress in its animation and software outsourcing, thanks in no small part to its proximity to Japan and South Korea, who are themselves software powerhouses.

Yantai now has more than 200 businesses in the software industry, about 60 of which provide outsourcing services in digital information technology, cartoons, and video games.

They did more than $60 million worth of offshore business last year, according to the city's commerce bureau.

Yantai has spent 1 billion yuan on industrial parks for software and animation development, focusing on outsourcing. One of them, the Yantai Animation Park, is considered a national animation base by the General Administration of Press and Publication.

And, Shandong Provincial Culture Bureau has declared it a demonstration base for the culture industry.

Six out of its 40 animation companies now provide overseas outsourcing services.

The city plans to spend at least 30 billion yuan ($4.6 billion) on a 1,110-hectare, outsourcing park, to pull in 80,000 skilled workers for the animation and software sectors.

At the same time, it is working on a number of creativity culture projects in Qingdao, including China's first 3D animation base, the Fantawild cartoon-theme park, and a large animated film studio.

Qingdao has 90 animation companies and four major industrial parks, which produced 133 movies last year.

The city's International Animation and Game Industrial Park alone reported annual revenues of 500 million yuan.

The city's animation industry sales are expected to amount to 5 billion yuan and those of the cartoon business, more than 20 billion yuan, by 2015, a Shandong creativity industry conference announced in September.

The rapid growth in the animation industry has attracted a number of prominent companies to the province, including South Korea's SBS TV Group, and the Shenzhen Huaqiang Group.

They have put a total of 3 billion yuan into video games, cartoons, and training.