Cultural fair highlights Fujian province's role in cross-Straits cooperation

The 11th Cross-Straits (Xiamen) Cultural Industries Fair is taking place at the International Conference and Exhibition Center in Xiamen, a port city in East China's Fujian province, running from Friday through Monday.

Fujian has witnessed great achievements in communication and cooperation in the past 40 years, and has become a significant passageway for residents of Taiwan to visit and work on the mainland.

The annual Xiamen cultural fair, launched in 2008, has played an important role in propelling cross-Straits cultural trade and exchanges. Official statistics show that there were 270 Taiwan delegations participating in the first session in 2008.

This year's fair covers an exhibition area of 73,000 square meters and provides more than 3,410 booths to exhibitors from China and other countries and regions.

It is one of the biggest cross-Straits expos on the Chinese mainland.

The fair was divided into five sections, showcasing achievements and the latest trends in culture, art, tourism, creative design and digital content, film and television.

A section for famous cultural companies is being set up for the first time. Provincial and municipal government delegations and renowned cross-Straits cultural enterprises are invited to take part in the section.

Highlighting "culture plus finance", the section will serve as a communication platform for companies and financial institutes to invest and cooperate on cultural projects via activities such as business promotions and matchmaking events.

The artwork section is a longstanding part of the fair, in which exquisite handicrafts made by established artists, inheritors of intangible cultural heritage and cross-Straits traditional artisans are displayed in the four categories of ceramics, jade sculptures, lacquer wares, calligraphy works and paintings.

The creative design section exhibits the latest innovative works by college students from both sides of the Straits, including industrial designs, business designs and packaging designs. For industrial designs, the fair will help designers connect with manufacturers to explore potential cooperation opportunities.

The section focused on digital content and media will show the development plans and achievements that Xiamen and Fujian have made in the film and television industries.

The innovative cultural tourism section is expected to flourish at the fair, as it did during past sessions.

The Taiwan Shopping Festival and the World Tourism Square, two highlights of the section, integrate not only the folk and creative products from different areas of Taiwan, but also diverse cultural products such as carpets, tinwares and silk scarves from countries and regions along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, including Italy, Pakistan, Nepal and India.

It is the first time the fair has hosted a Taiwan pavilion, which is expected to attract a group of cultural and creative brands, such as Franz Collection and Jiu Zhen Nan pastry, to showcase the inheritance and innovation of Taiwan's craftsmanship.

In addition, a robotics contest for cross-Straits primary and middle school students is also taking place, as well as a competition of weiqi, known in English as the board game Go, between human players and artificial intelligence programs.

A photo exhibition centering on cross-Straits cultural communication is another highlight of the fair.

The show will exhibit the results of the cross-Straits cultural exchanges in the past decade through pictures and illustrations, especially those achieved after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012.

Through 10 years of development, the Xiamen cultural fair has won recognition and sincere support from exhibitors and cultural practitioners from Taiwan and the mainland.

The success of the fair is partly attributed to its consistent theme of "Inheriting the Past and Innovating the Future", which highlights the desire to carry forward excellent Chinese culture on both sides of the Straits, said Huang Weizhou, deputy head of Fujian Provincial Department of Culture and deputy director of the fair's organizing committee office.

"We also lay emphasis on results and effectiveness by designing such programs as project matchmaking, copyright promotion and auctions for exquisite artwork, constantly improving our services to exhibitors and creating maximum benefit for them," Huang added.

Last year, the Xiamen cultural fair helped 120 projects find investors, with total contract volume reaching 32.03 billion yuan ($4.62 billion).

haonan@chinadaily.com.cn

Students from Fujian Normal University perform a fashion show at the 11th Cross-Straits (Xiamen) Cultural Industries Fair, held in East China's Fujian province from Friday to Monday.Hu Meidong / China Daily

(China Daily 11/03/2018 page10)