Suzhou City held the cultural industry development conference on January 12, outlining key tasks to improve quality and strengthen market reputation of local cultural enterprises.

Representatives from the city, its districts, departments, and enterprises exchanged views in the meeting. Huang Aijun, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Suzhou Municipal Committee and also secretary of the CPC Gusu District Committee, said Gusu aims to double the contribution of the cultural industry to its GDP growth and will earmark at least 150 million yuan a year in fiscal spending to support the sector’s transformation and upgrading.

Suzhou has formulated a three-year action plan to build the brand centering on Jiangnan, an area south of the lower Yangtze River with profound history and vibrant culture. The plan includes ten major projects from 2021 to 2023 in order to study, discover, present, and transform the legacies of Jiangnan Culture, with an aim to turn Suzhou into a core player of communicating, reviving and developing the culture.

One of the ten projects is to develop ten tourist attractions of the Grand Canal through the building and renovation of cultural landmarks. Through such efforts, Suzhou hopes to become a role model in the construction of the broader Grand Canal Cultural Belt.

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