Shortage of innovation harms creative exports

Industries relying on intellectual property rights contributing more to GDP, yet greater efforts needed

Although China's copyright-based industries are contributing more to the overall economy, the country is still far from being a copyright-innovative country, experts said.

China's creative industries and their interdependent manufacturing sectors have boomed in recent years thanks to improved protection. But weak exports suggest its products lack appeal overseas, according to an official analysis released by the National Copyright Administration on Friday.

China's copyrights-based industries generated about 3.15 trillion yuan ($507 billion) in annual production value in 2011, an annual increase of 19.56 percent from 2010; and they accounted for 6.67 percent of the country's GDP, said the report, titled The Study of the Economic Contribution of the Copyright-based Industries.

In 2011, copyrights-based industries provided jobs for about 11.2 million people, 1.37 million more than in 2010.

In 2011, the total exports from China's core intellectual property-dependent industries, including the creation of literary works, music, film, software development, and press and publication generated $5.3 billion in revenue, contributing only 1.86 percent of copyright-relevant exports.

Despite the general increase, the limited export sales from core industries showed China still lags far behind IP powers like the United States in creating globally marketable products with independent copyrights, pundits said.

"Our copyright-dependent industries' exports still heavily rely on sales from traditional manufacturing businesses, which means we should take an objective view of the growth," director of the administration's copyright management department Yu Cike said at the report's release.

According to the analysis, China's copyrights-related industries' export revenues totaled $286 billion in 2011. More than 90 percent came from interdependent sectors, including the manufacture of televisions, radios, computers and relevant devices.

Yu noted a "huge difference" compared to the US, which enjoyed nearly $141 billion in overseas sales from its core copyright industries, including music, film, publication and software, in the same year. This far surpasses other sectors in the US like aircraft and automobile manufacturing.