Tianjin artists present their clay figurines at the 10th China Beijing International Cultural & Creative Industry Expo.

The cities of Beijing and Tianjin and Hebei province are making a joint presentation at an annual cultural exposition that opened at China International Exhibition Center on Thursday.

This is the 10th edition of the China Beijing International Cultural & Creative Industry Expo.

As part of the national strategy to integrate the three areas in the economic and cultural fields, the event is being used as an opportunity to build a national core for the creative sector, the organizers say.

A total of 100 representative cultural projects, including performances, art and craft and cartoons, have been selected for display in an effort to promote regional exchanges.

"We put the projects together so that we can promote them as a whole. The projects this year provide numerous business opportunities," says Li Jianhua, the deputy director of the province's culture department.

The province has 27 projects on display, covering entertainment, services, art and craft.

The value of the culture and creative industry in Beijing has been increasing at the rate of 20 percent per year for the last five years, says Chen Dong, head of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture.

Cultural corporations in Beijing earned revenues of about 1.1 trillion yuan ($173 billion) in 2014, 279 billion more than the year before. It made up 13 percent of the total municipal GDP in 2014.

In the first eight months of this year, the total value of the culture industry in Beijing was estimated at 700 billion yuan, a 5.1 percent rise compared with the same period last year.

For years, Beijing has ranked first in the China culture industry index issued by the industry department of the Ministry of Culture, which evaluates the culture sector in different cities and provinces in terms of product value, influence and momentum.