Foreign cultural companies look for partners

Foreign cultural corporations are looking for business growth in China this year, according to a report published on Saturday morning at a procurement and partner-matchmaking event at the 8th China International Cultural Industries Fair in Shenzhen.

The report, conducted by the research company China Business Event and sponsored by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shenzhen Sub-council, was compiled from questionnaires received from 302 foreign cultural corporations from Europe, the US, Japan and South Korea in the fields of media, publishing, film and television, music, cultural education, gaming, animation and comics as well as trade in cultural products.

More than 76 percent of the respondents said China is an important market for their companies' future development and they already have plans to enter the Chinese market. But more than half claim to have very little knowledge of the Chinese cultural industry and its market.

They are looking first for agency service and legal assistance, and then government support. Instead of language difficulties, most see the cultural differences and China's vast geographical area as their biggest challenges in doing business in China.

Forty-eight percent come into China through working with agencies and 39 percent by setting up a branch office. For a China base, Shanghai is first choice, then Beijing and Shenzhen.

Among the eight groups, media and film companies showed the most interest.

Sun Taiquan, director of ICN, a media group for overseas Chinese based in Los Angeles, said his company of 16 channels, 14 newspapers and one radio station has massive demand for Chinese television programs.

Eager to cooperate with Chinese program producers, he said last year his firm bought 1,470 TV-series episodes from the mainland including the New Princess Pearl and 720 hours of features including Take Me Out.

Florian Satzinger, chief of the trading company named Alpsgroup, said in fluent Chinese that he has been doing trading business in China for 12 years, mainly purchasing accessories from Zhejiang province and LED products from Shenzhen and sell them to supermarkets in Germany.

"The land in China is getting more and more expensive, and that is the biggest challenge I face now," the German businessman said, "but I still have a lot of good projects, involving tens of millions of yuan."

Maria Tomashevskaya from a Russian company named Orient Development said she was making her first trip to the ICIF because her company, which specializes in electronic products such as DVD players, is considering entering the Chinese market.

"We have suppliers and clients in China, so we want to come here and produce our products in China and sell them worldwide," she said.

"But it's quite difficult," she said, "I think we need to find a legal partner, and look for people who speak both English and Chinese, and we hope we can get support from the Chinese government."

The ICIF, held through May 21 in Shenzhen by Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Commerce and the Shenzhen government, is the only annual cultural industries fair at the State level.