Shortage of local consumer support stagnates cultural industries

Local cultural industries have thrived on collaboration both at a domestic and regional level. With this considered a unique feature of the city, the 2015 edition of Forum on Cultural Industries (Macao) concluded Monday morning at the Science Center.
Apart from this idea, proposed by the invited guest speakers from around the globe, Hua Jian, Director of the mainland’s Cultural Industry Research Center, told the audience that virtual platforms would be a key way in which to facilitate business investments, trades, financing and manufacturing in the city’s late-developing industry in conjunction with its neighboring regions or even the world.
Another speaker, Lee Yong Ping, who is also the former Vice Mayor of Taipei City, described the global success of the Taiwanese cultural industry in the forum. According to Lee, in order to attract international attention, renowned local Taiwanese brands all marketed Chinese culture in an innovative way while also incorporating Western elements.
Also as an Honorary Chairman at the island’s Cultural and Creative Industry Association, Lee claimed that public involvement was pivotal in advancing the budding cultural and creative sector in any given city, drawing on the experience back in Taiwan.
“We often have this – whether or not the cultural and creative industry flourishes, is based on the willingness of the locals to buy local-branded items,” said the Taiwanese speaker. He then identified the most likely major issue holding back the creative industry in any given location as local consumers going for famous international brands.
Other speakers including Quintana Carolina, the economic affairs officer from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and Wang Jung Wen, chairman of the Taiwan Cultural – Creative Development Co. Ltd’s board of directors, agreed that cooperation between Macau and its neighboring cities is essential. “I would like to say that the initiative of regional synergy and communication platforms for cultural industries […] [requires] the platforms to exchange ideas with the cities around them and Macau, to identify some strengths and weaknesses,” said Carolina. She also agreed with the mainland researcher’s insights, saying the virtual platform could help open up the Asian market as “there was much digital content consumption” in Asia.
With most remarks vocalized in the three-hour forum pointing towards the city’s need to identify its own distinctive feature, the representative from the local cultural sector Agnes Lam concluded the dialogue by bringing up a couple of doubts, which had been left insufficiently addressed by the speakers owing to time running out.
According to Ms Lam, the obvious issues facing the local industry were the unaffordable rental prices, which forced the unwanted closure of some stores; a limited understanding of the city’s past multicultural diversity due to poor education and nurturing; the exponential growth of tourists coming from the mainland as well as poor public support, both financially and psychologically. Staff reporter