He Zengqiang, Secretary General of Shanghai Creative Industry Center
Creativity is the soul of industry, while industry is the root of creativity. With the great emphasis and support from Shanghai municipal committee and government, closely conforming to the “four centers” construction and main strategy of “developing the city with education and science”, Shanghai creative industry has been sticking to the balanced development between physical and industrial construction. It follows the development rules and embodies industrial connotation with creative design as its core. It vigorously expands industrial scale, raises industrial grade, optimizes industrial structure, improves industrial layout, and accelerates industrial clustering, making the development of creative industry a main force for enhancing the comprehensive competitiveness of the city.
The original motive of Shanghai creative industry is from the practices of adjustment of the industrial structure and city function transfer at the end of last century. Since April of 2005, Shanghai, which features industry clustering enhancement, has 75 creative industrial clustering zones after four times plate-awarding, which covers an area up to 2,210,000m2. The overall production value of first three creative industrial clusters reaches nearly 20 billion yuan, with an overall investment of about 3 billion. More than 27 thousand people work there and over 3500 enterprises settle there with a per capita output rate of 600 thousand yuan. Creative design enterprises settled in the creative industrial clusters are from 30 countries and regions such as America, Japan, Belgium, France, Singapore and Italy, with industrial categories covering main fields of creative industry like research and development design creativity, architecture design creativity, consultation and planning design creativity, cultural media creativity and fashion consumption creativity.

I. Principle of Shanghai’s Creative Industrial Clusters’ Reconstruction

1 Basic reconstruction principle
As Shanghai creative industry clusters got their fast development through reconstruction of old industrial workshops and old urban areas of Shanghai, it’s important to harmonize the benefits of all the three parties, namely real estate owners, developers and creative industry workers introduced through business inviting. The development of creative industry is closely related to their joint efforts. Hence, we should practice the development method of “3 no changes”, which means no changes in the ownership of real estate, no changes in the construction structure of the buildings and no changes in the nature of land. “5 changes” has been achieved because of the “3 no changes”, i.e., change in industrial structure, employment structure, administrative mode, corporate form and culture, making the creative clusters adapt to the functional changes of the city.

2. Incorporation with Local Features
In constructing of Shanghai’s creative industrial clusters, we should consider combining them with the district orientation, thus boost the rapid and healthy development of local special economy. For example, the target of Jing’an District is “Advertisement Jing’an”. Tthen along the Changping Road you could see thousands of advertising companies, many of which are settled in clusters like Medium Culture Garden, Jing’an Modern Industry Mansion and Tongle Fang.

3. Incorporation with Holding Groups
The construction of creative industry clusters should consider incorporate with the advantages of holding groups, because most old workshop resources are held by the holding groups. Hence, in the process of reconstructing creative industrial clusters, we should fully consider the industrial advantages of original groups. There are four major reasons for this: first, make full use of the idle assets owned by the state-owned holding groups; second, promote the main industries’ development of holding groups; third, upgrade the industrial upgrade of holding groups; fourth, provide jobs for urban residents. For example, when Shanghai Textile Holding (Group) Cooperation reconstructed the clusters, its main targets are fashion design and art decoration.

II. Governmental Guidance in Enhancing the Clustered Development of Creative Industry
1 Government Acknowledges Creative Industries and Conducts Plate-awarding Collectively
Shanghai took the lead in awarding plates to 18 creative industry clusters on April 28th, 2005, which gained wide acknowledgement of people from all walks of life, and the plate-awarding experience had been rapidly spread to other cities. Meanwhile, Shanghai made the second, third and fourth plate-awarding on November 30th , 2005, May 20th , 2006 and November 22th, 2006 respectively, yielding certain effect for Shanghai’s clustered development of creative industry, accelerating the extension and demonstration of creative industry.
2 Policy Will Be Drawn out and Parks Will Be Given Privileges
Shanghai will draw out “Administrative Regulation for Construction of Shanghai Creative Industry Clusters”, listing specific regulations for the construction, cognizance and management of the creative industry clusters. Meanwhile, Shanghai will coordinate with district governments to implement some complementary policies, , so as to greatly attract park investors and the entry of large number of creative industries, which will boom the creative industry clusters, and improve the surrounding urban and governmental environments.
3 Districts Act Together and Construct Coordinating Mechanism
To further unify thinking and enhance awareness, strengthen cooperation between all corresponding departments at municipal level, make full use of the advantage of “two-tier government, three-tier management”, Shanghai has set long-term effective working mechanism of combination of city and district. One is that under the guidance of Shanghai municipal committee and municipal government, based on the actual needs, make policies on use of land, fund support and preferential taxation. The second is to accelerate the research of relevant methods for reasonable planning and use of old industrial buildings in the central parts of cities. Shanghai encourages the protective development of old industrial buildings without greatly expanding the FAR, for developing productive service industry and creative industry in transformation. The third is to build a work network where city and district work together to boost the creative industry clusters. The city level focuses on the plan guidance and policy making while the district level focuses on putting organizations into effect and boost them, which means they will hold work advance meetings regularly to exchange information and experiences, for accelerating the development.
4 Classify Industries and Set Key Development Point
As the industrialization, urbanization and modernization share different courses, and due to the difference in their economic development and cultural tradition, different countries have different understanding and definitions of creative industries. For example, creative industry in UK is mainly around culture media. It has set the creative industry classification system including 13 creative industries like ad, film and music etc.; in USA, intellectual property rights has been regarded as the core of creative industry, which is thus called “copyright industry”; in Singapore, designing industry is greatly emphasized and great efforts are made to help the development of designing creative industry. When classifying creative industry and determining the key developing point, after fully consulting the creative industry classification system of countries and regions in Europe, America and Asia-Pacific region and incorporating China’s specific situation and features of Shanghai, Shanghai set the creative industry statistics classification system which mainly features enhancing industrialization, urbanization and modernization. The system mainly includes 5 categories, namely research and development design, architectural design, culture media, consultation and planning, and fashion consumption.
5 Organize Activities to Cultivate Market Space
Since the first “Shanghai international creative industry activity week” was held in Shanghai in 2005, it has been highly praised by all walks of life. According to incomplete statistics, the exhibition area for the 7-day activity week of year 2006 reached nearly 100 thousand square meters. Visitors reached more than 150 thousand person times, among whom more than 70% are specialized people, nearly 10 % are foreign representatives from more than 30 countries and regions like UK, France, Germany, USA, Australia, Korea, Holand, Danmark and Japan. Governmental representatives, news media, specialists and scholars from Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Xi’an, Nanjing, Wuxi, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wuhan, Chongqing, Dalian, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hongkong, Jiaxing and Xinxiang etc. all participated in various activities of the activity week in Shanghai. These wholly show domestic and foreign people’s enthusiasm and longing for creative industry. The great influence, prevalence and amount dealt in this activity week have significant influence both home and abroad.
The third Shanghai International Creative Industry Activity Week will mainly feature three sections, four areas, six festivals. It will enable more participants to experience creative commodities and life through intensive exhibition and dealing of creative industry achievements from developed countries and cities. It will explore the protection and utilization ways of excellent historical buildings through 1933 old workshop mold; represent the original museum of human history in Shanghai through overall protective development demonstration of neighborhood in Hongkou District, thus deduct beforehand the theme that World Expo makes the city better.