Cultural consumption is the most potential in consumer demand “The cultural department always stresses in the face of international financial crisis that ascending cultural consumption ascending has to promote the development of cultural consumption. Experts predict that China’s undiscovered cultural consumption is over four trillion, however, the cultural consumption is about 1.6 trillion, which means there remain three trillion spaces undiscovered,” said Minister of Culture Cai Wu.

One reporter asked, “Recently the hot TV series from Korea has helped us realize the lack of our own local cultural productions, so what’s your suggestion on cultivating China’s cultural consumption?” Cai replied, “The cultural department always stresses that cultural consumption ascending as a fresh consumption has to promote the development of cultural consumption.” Cai also said that to discover and cultivate cultural consumption is a hot issue so they conduct surveys to encourage urban and rural residents’ cultural consumption which has not grown very well compared with China’s economic and cultural development. He added, “This report shows some policy advice which includes the use of cultural cards for residents and the establishment of public platforms about cultural information. What is policy advice? As the range of China’s cultural consumption becomes large, domains managed by the cultural department only exist in the entertainment market, computer gaming industry and animation. On the other hand, fields covering video production, advertising, printing and the publishing of digital productions belong to other departments, but they are essential parts of the whole cultural consumption, especially now that Internet culture is more popular. Therefore, we have put forward some policy advice when we study this question, that all the departments should put them into practice, the cultural department cannot do it by itself.”

Encourage regions to implement the policies on cultural consumption innovatively. The first season of cultural consumption benefiting people took place in Beijing from Sep. 9 2003 to the middle October, offering an effective platform for cultural marketing and cultural consumption. During the program the accumulated number of consumers exceeded 26 million and turnover amounted to 5.2 trillion, which accomplished the cooperation of benefiting people and businesses. For instance, various temple fairs during Spring Festival not only reveal people’s cultural life vividly but also have a considerable benefit. The film market is one of the domains in which we should increase cultural consumption, our country’s box-office sales amounts to over twenty billion, increasing 100 percent. What’s the important factor to restrict cultural consumption? People like to save because they have to pay for endowment insurance, medical insurance and education for their children. People prefer to be a consumer not a saver only if the government emphasizes social security, solving the problems of endowment insurance, medical insurance and compulsory education.

Raise lower-middle class income in urban and rural areas, increase resident income and stimulate them to consume. In our country the lower-middle class in urban and rural areas is the main body of potential cultural consumption, therefore we should first increase their income to enhance their cultural consumption. The government will also take effective measures on this issue.

“How to mobilize social vitality” is necessary in the process of deepening cultural reform in terms of private capital. The primary standard in the culture industry is to follow the market rules and treat state-owned and private institutions equally. For instance, entry, supervision and service offered should be required equally. Another example, in the development of the National Endowment for the Arts the first principle we made is for the whole of society, breaking the limits of ownership, the boundary between center and local, and the division among departments. All of these policies are quite significant for private capital especially on cultural construction, and they will arouse all of society’s enthusiasm for cultural development.