The China Cultural Expo promotes global economic and trade development as well as cultural exchanges

The 21st China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry Fair, which lasted for five days, came to an end at the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center on May 26. With the theme of “Innovation Leads the Trend, Creativity Brightens Life”, this year’s fair has drawn global attention and has become an important platform for showcasing China’s achievements in cultural industry development and promoting cultural exchanges and cooperation. This year’s expo will be held in a format that is mainly offline and also online, with eight pavilions and a total exhibition area of 160,000 square meters. A total of 6,280 government agencies, cultural institutions and enterprises participated in the event, attracting 305 overseas exhibitors from 65 countries and regions around the world, including over 50 countries along the Belt and Road Initiative. More than 35,000 overseas professional visitors attended the event both online and offline. The main venue has a total exhibition area of 160,000 square meters, featuring eight pavilions including three general pavilions and five specialized pavilions, with over 120,000 cultural products on display and more than 4,000 cultural industry investment and financing projects being shown and traded on site.

The artificial intelligence section, which was set up for the first time, attracted more than 60 leading enterprises in the field of artificial intelligence, showcasing the latest application results of AI in the cultural field. The one-stop AI creation platform “AI Creation Blind Box” can transform visitors’ inspirations into printable and shareable 3D works, achieving rapid transformation from ideas to physical objects; The “AI robot coffee kiosks” offer visitors cups of delicately latte art, demonstrating the convenient application of AI in the field of life services. “In just six hours of operation, nearly 200 cups of coffee were sold, generating sales of nearly 3,000 yuan,” said the person in charge.

Cultural and creative exchanges around the world have drawn global attention. The Egyptian delegation brought well-known cultural and creative brands such as papyrus paintings and perfumes, and used mechanical arms to write Egyptian hieroglyphics on papyrus, showcasing the unique charm of ancient Egyptian civilization; For the first time, the Nordic Swedish luxury jewelry brand showcased rare amber collections from the Cretaceous period at the expo. Traditional handcrafted alpaca wool products from the Peruvian group, with their fine texture and ethnic characteristics, are the highlights of the exhibition area. Global cultural products compete on the same stage in Shenzhen, creating a “warm cultural trade” venue.

It is worth noting that the exhibition has added a cultural export zone. The cultural export zone and the cultural products import and export trade zone provide one-stop services such as cross-border live streaming and supply and demand negotiation for exhibitors to help Chinese cultural and creative products “go global” and attract high-quality cultural resources from overseas to “bring in”. In addition, the exhibition has set up a special zone for tax refunds upon departure, enabling the entire process of “purchase and refund on the spot, collect the money on the spot”. According to statistics, sales of outbound tax refund goods in Shenzhen from January to April have reached nearly 70 percent of the total for the whole year of 2024, more than doubling year-on-year. During the recent May Day holiday, sales of goods for departure from Shenzhen, China, rose 6.7 times year-on-year, and the number of applicants increased 8.41 times year-on-year. Among them, the number of people applying for the “buy and refund” method increased by 28 times year-on-year. The departure tax refund policy has facilitated shopping in China by tourists from all over the world, creating a new shopping boom.

Since the first Cultural Expo was launched, the cumulative transaction volume of the expo has exceeded 3 trillion yuan, serving more than 45,000 global enterprises. The expo has become a high-profile, large-scale, effective and influential event in China’s cultural industry, facilitating the exchange of world cultures and commodities and promoting the development of world economy and trade.