Zhang Xiaoming, a researcher of the Cultural Research Center of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that promoting the development of the culture industry is an important strategy for China in answering the new wave of technological revolution and upgrading of industrial structure after its WTO entry. China's culture industry will see some changes after the WTO entry.

First, the government's traditional way of administering culture will see a fundamental change. The WTO is the only international body dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world's trading nations. These documents provide the legal ground-rules for international commerce. Although negotiated and signed by governments, the goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. The WTO trading system has included cultural business into services trade; thus China has to separate part of its cultural affairs covered in the WTO documents from the country's institutional system and introduce industrialized operations into the culture industry.

Second, Chinese traditional cultural institutions mainly depend on government lending and have meagre production capacity and do not have competitiveness at all. After China joins the WTO, the most urgent task for its culture industry is to promote structural adjustment and market conformity, optimize industrial upgrading, and increase scale benefits through in-depth reforms, thus shifting the operation and growing modes of the culture industry from dispersed and extensive type with a large quantity to pooled and intensive type with high profits.

Third, China's accession to the WTO will transform the organizing pattern of cultural enterprises from subordinate of administrative departments to market bodies. Large-scale cultural giants will emerge through alliances, mergers and acquisitions, realizing group operation that crosses industries, borders, medias and ownerships.

Fourth, the domestic and international markets will be closely connected after China's entry into the WTO. But China's culture industry has not got ready to compete with international cultural giants yet and this calls for the concerted efforts of the State, collectivities and individuals. Only with harmonious development between culture and non-culture industries and full amalgamation of cultural product market and cultural capital market can China's culture industry roll its hoop and survive the competition.

Pressures also come from inflow of foreign cultural products, cultural capital and value judgment, which will constitute a threat to Chinese cultural development. Therefore, successfully meeting all these challenges require concerted efforts from the government and all cultural enterprises, collective responsibility of the whole nation and a policy system centered on multi-ownership investment bodies as well.

(Source: China News Service)