China's sports industry annual output reaches 1.1 trln yuan

China's sports industry sector witnessed a 11.91 percent increase to stand at 1.1 trillion yuan (about 177 billion US dollars) in 2013, a senior sports official revealed here on Monday.

"As a new growth point of the national economy, the sports industry output reached 1.1 trillion yuan in 2013, which is a 11.91 percent increase compared to the figure in 2012. The added value is 356.3 billion yuan, accounted for 0.63 percent of the 2013 GDP," said Liu Peng, head of China's State General Administration of Sports (CAS), during a conference which assembled the country's central and regional top sports officials on Monday.

"The sales of sports lotteries in 2014 has accumulated to a record-high 174.604 billion yuan by Dec. 28, 2014, which is a 32.6 percent year-to-year increase," Liu said. "The CAS has also allocated a total of 850 million yuan as subsidies in 2014 to encourage sports venues and facilities to open free or at a lower price to the public."

The country's State Council in October announced plans to develop the sports industry in one of the largest markets in the world and set a goal to raise the sector's annual output to five trillion yuan by 2025.

According to the State Council, China will support the emerging sector by eliminating regulations that hinder the sector's development, scrapping unreasonable administrative approval procedures and encouraging social capital to invest in the industry, including construction of sports facilities and providing sports-oriented products and services.

It will also expand the opening up of the sector by encouraging foreign capital to invest in the domestic sports industry.

Liu said the CAS will carry out a series of measures to accelerate the sports sector's growth in 2015, including promoting grassroots winter sports events in China to stimulate related demands for winter sports, leisure and fitness consumption, meanwhile to boost China's bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.