Beijing bids to become more vibrant cultural hub

The national cultural center will be guided by core socialist values and will be a research and communication center for Marxism. Revolutionary history and stories of the country will be emphasized, according to Zhao.

It will serve China's international cultural exchanges through its globally renowned cultural events, such as the Beijing International Book Fair, Beijing Design Week and the Beijing International Film Festival.

According to the plan, a demonstration zone for public cultural services and cultural industry development will also be developed. Liu Shaojian, director of Beijing's State-owned cultural assets administration center, said at the event that the number of cultural companies in the city grew 55 percent since 2013 to reach 147,000 in 2018, with over 1.21 million workers in the industry. The average annual growth rate of value-added services in the cultural industry was 13.3 percent between 2013 and 2018. Emerging sectors like video, livestreaming, animation and gaming have developed quickly.