Culture is the soul of a global city, prosperous culture its symbol. The “Zhijiang Cultural Industry Belt”, surrounded by the West Lake, the Qiantang River and a continuous chain of green mountains, has become a shining “golden name card” for Hangzhou. Taking the area from Fuyang Bridge to Hangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone as the axis, the belt extends to both sides and spreads over almost half of the city of Hangzhou. 

When the plan to establish the Zhijiang Cultural Industry Belt was announced three years ago, it was stated that the belt would be built into the main engine of the development of the province’s cultural industry and an important growth pole of the national cultural industry, and a top international cultural and creative center would be  established. Fast forward to the present, major projects have been implemented and leading enterprises of the industry have congregated in the belt, creating economies of agglomeration. 

According to Zhijiang Cultural Industry Belt Development Plan, the belt centers on “one belt, one core, five poles and many clusters”, and aims to create six cultural industry clusters worth tens of billions.

Specifically, the Zhijiang Cultural Industry Belt takes Zhijiang New City as the core, with Shangcheng district, Binjiang district (White Horse Lake), Olympic Sports Center (Xianghu), Jiuqiao and Fuchun as important supporting pillars and growth poles. In addition, places including Jiande city, Tonglu county, Chun’an county, Lin’an district, among others, will serve as the belt’s upstream and downstream areas, taking full advantage of their resources endowment, exploring featured local cultural resources and fostering the development of cultural industry.

The heart of the Zhijiang Cultural Industry Belt, namely the Zhijiang Development Core, overlaps with the area from Zhuantang to the adjacent Yinhe block in Fuyang county. Combined with the establishment of the Zhuantang Shuangpu New Town and the Fuyang Yinhu New Town, the core will be made into the developing engine of belt and a major platform to leverage the development of global digital cultural industry. On the basis of existing projects such as the International Exhibition Center at Yunqi Town, the Longwu Tea Town and the West Lake Artino Town, a number of key cultural projects like the Xiangshan Art Commune and the Zhijiang Cultural Center will be implemented in the belt.

In addition to the “Zhijiang Development Core”, dozens of other cultural facilities projects are planned to be built or further developed in the five growth poles, covering existing cultural industrial parks and bases, and at the same time driving the rise of emerging industrial parks. For instance, the Southern Song Dynasty Imperial Town project seeks to develop the place into a national culture and leisure tourism center; and the China Animation Museum is the first national animation museum in China. 

At the industry level, the Zhijiang Cultural Industry Belt focuses on Hangzhou’s four “cultural industries with competitive advantages”, namely the digital cultural industry, the film and television cultural industry, the animation and games industry and the creative and design industry. 

Of particular note is that the digital culture industry will be the top priority. For example, the West Lake Digital Entertainment Industrial Park, one of Hangzhou’s ten major cultural and creative industrial parks, covers businesses ranging from entertainment websites to e-commerce websites, from VOD (video on demand) services to value-added services, among other fields. Tellhow Dobe E-Park and China Digital Music Valley, two other key projects, have started operations, injecting new impetus to expedite the development of the Zhijiang Cultural Industry Belt. 

On the whole, the spatial development pattern of “one core, five poles and many clusters” in the Zhijiang Cultural industrial belt is increasingly coming into focus. The foundation of key areas such as digital culture, film and television, animation and games, as well as artistic and creative design is constantly consolidated, and a development system with orderly competition and distinctive characteristics is gradually established.

With the vigorous development of the cultural industry, cultural elements on both sides of the Qiantang River are continuously activated, and an increasing number of leading cultural enterprises are being drawn to the Zhijiang Cultural Industry Belt, which is fast turning into the forefront of the development of cultural industry in Zhejiang province. Currently, the belt boasts a total of 813 cultural enterprises above designated size. In 2019, statistics show that its main business income exceeded 231 billion yuan, and its value-added reached more than 70 billion yuan.

A myriad of regularly organized domestic and international events have provided impetus to the development of the belt as well. The largest, the most popular and the most influential of its kind, the 16th edition of the China International Cartoon and Animation Festival was the first major international cultural festival held in Hangzhou between September and October 2020 after the COVID-19 virus struck. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hangzhou is among the first Chinese cities to organize online conferences, expos and fairs, including the China Digital Reading Conference and Online Cartoon, Animation and Games Industrial Trade Fair, which have created new channels for the development of cultural enterprises. 

At present, many more prominent events such as the annual Hangzhou Cultural and Creative Industry Expo, the China Online Literature Week, the Hangzhou Art Fair and the China Craft Week held in the Zhijiang Cultural Industry Belt have been turned into recognizable brands, testifying to Hangzhou’s cultural prosperity and the booming development of the belt.