Recently, 16 provincial departments, including Sichuan Provincial Department of Commerce, the Publicity Department of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and the Foreign Affairs Office of Sichuan Province, jointly issued the Work Plan of Sichuan Province to Promote High-quality Development of National Cultural Export Bases. By making a list of 33 tasks in six areas with a focus on mechanism improvement, innovative exploration and development guarantee, Sichuan will speed up the building of national cultural export bases, and foster experience and innovative practice cases that can be promoted in other parts of the country.
According to customs data, in 2021, led by national cultural export bases, the exports of Sichuan's core cultural products reached 1.34 billion U.S. dollars, up 101.41% year on year; those of cultural services returned to pre-pandemic level and amounted to 359 million U.S. dollars, up 4.41% year on year.
To further advance the building of high-standard national cultural export bases and drive the development of the cultural trade in the province, the plan proposed 33 specific tasks in six areas, i.e. refining the joint contribution mechanism, enhancing financial support policies, optimizing financial services, improving cultural trade services, deepening international cooperation and strengthening statistical work.
In terms of enhancing financial support policies, eligible key national cultural export enterprises in Sichuan will be granted incentives, and recognized technologically advanced service enterprises are allowed to pay corporate income taxes at a reduced rate of 15%.
In terms of optimizing financial services, TIANFU WENCHANDAI (lit. cultural industry loan in Sichuan) will be piloted, where cultural trade enterprises who meet the requirements for application will be provided with credit aid and subsidies for financing costs, so as to relieve the difficulties faced by them in accessing affordable financing. Besides, the development of cross-border trade will be supported. The provincial government will reward 300,000 yuan to each of Sichuan-based enterprises that use RMB for the settlement of trade in goods, trade in services, and cross-border direct investment and rank among the top 10 in the province in terms of the total annual settlement amount of the three types of businesses.
According to an official of Sichuan Provincial Department of Commerce, Sichuan will step up efforts to build national cultural export bases, further encourage the export of copyrights of such products as books, films, TV dramas, animations and games, support the bases to participate in the projects to pass on and develop intangible cultural heritage, encourage cultural trade enterprises to attend trade promotion events such as China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), China International Import Expo (CIIE) and China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair, and vigorously cultivate skilled talents for the industries related to cultural export. At the same time, Sichuan will increase the proportion in various funds such as culture, foreign trade and economy to boost the growth of cultural trade, support the bases to improve public service platforms, and help enterprises explore the international market.