Government officials and private sector experts from Korea, China and Japan discussed ways to strengthen cooperative projects in movies, games and music at the annual culture content forum held at a hotel in downtown Seoul yesterday.
"Korea has proposed more joint productions in movies, animation and games with China and Japan, offering a venue where private companies in those sectors can work together more actively", said Park Soon-tae, director of the content promotion team at Korea's Culture and Tourism Ministry, in an interview after the morning session.
The Korea-Japan-China Cultural Content Industry Forum, which started in Shanghai in 2002, reflects growing cross-border sales in the content sector among the three Asian nations. Korea, in particular, is interested in strengthening its position as a provider of high-quality movies and games on the strength of the Korean Wave, a Korean culture boom sweeping Asia, while Japan and China are keen to nurture their content businesses through joint projects across the region.
Park said joint production is already active in movies among Korea, China and Japan, but there are still regulatory obstacles to be removed for fully-fledged cooperation in the culture content industry. A growing number of Korean moviemakers and game developers are expanding their business coverage into China and Japan, but detailed information about culture content markets and government regulations in the three nations are yet to be shared.
The global culture content market, estimated at $1.34 trillion this year, is expected to reach $1.77 trillion in 2009. The Northeast Asian region is also witnessing a noticeable growth of the culture content industry, with the combined market expanding at an annual rate of 11.6 percent.
Recognizing the huge potential, governments in Korea, China and Japan recently announced they would pour more resources into the new culture business items such as games, movies and music to help foster overall economic growth.
In a keynote speech for the two-day forum, Masaki Koito, director of the media and content division at Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, said the digital content industry in Japan grew 11.8 percent to 2.5 trillion yen ($21.2 billion) last year, boosted by the solid growth of video, internet, online game and music sales.
Gao Zhen, international cooperation director of China's Culture Ministry, said the Chinese government is providing assistance to help local firms develop viable business platforms and beef up their competitiveness.
China has set three major cultural industry areas - Changjia Delta region, Zhujiang Delta region and Bohai zone - in order to help develop the content business clusters that reflect unique regional and ethnic elements in southwest and northwest regions, Gao said.
Considering the growing number of joint productions among the three nations, participants at the forum stressed the need to refine and tighten copyright protection rules that govern culture content such as digital games, downloadable movies and other media.
Korea, Japan and China alternately host the forum, with next year's meeting scheduled to be held in Japan.
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