Cultural and creative industry “lacking content”

Macau is developing cultural tourism. Hence, more efforts should be made to research local history, said Agnes Lam Iok Fong, a member of the Cultural Industry Committee (CIC) during TDM radio programme ‘Macau Forum’ yesterday. She said better understating of the city’s unique history and culture would help the city to attract more tourists into learning about it as well.
Ms. Lam stated that Macau did not put much importance on the documentation of its literature in the past. Only around the time Macau returned to China’s sovereignty has more emphasis been put on local documentation work. The accumulation of the collective memory in the city is related to the development of the cultural and creative industry thus more documentation should be done in order to develop the industry, Ms. Lam said.
Lok Chi Hou, director of Manner Production, a network creative company, pointed out during the radio programme that the most important element for the cultural and creative industry is the core story of the city, with the creation of the story content key.
Ms. Lam said an evaluation system should be set up to determine whether the cultural and creative industry in the city is successful or not. She pointed out that there are already some established standards for the creative industry in the United Kingdom, South Korea and other countries.
The measured factors include how much the cultural and creative industry accounts for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the employment rate, etc.
She said that Macau is still in its first phase of developing the creative industry as there is no basic statistical indicator set up in place yet in the city.
Cora Si, the exhibitor curator of OX Warehouse, also participated in the radio programme, saying there have been more people working full-time in the cultural and creative industry in recent years, but that they are still a minority in the industry.
Education and market
Ms. Si added that education is an important factor in promoting the cultural and creative industry in Macau, and that local schools do not offer sufficient educational courses in arts to local students. She suggested combining the arts subjects as a major subject at school in which students could learn how to appreciate the arts.
Mr. Lok said that better policies to facilitate the cultural and creative industry is more important than simply distributing funds. He added that simplified procedures for video shooting permit, for example,would help, as well as providing assistance to those proposing business ideas. He also stressed that nurturing the market and cultivating buyers for Macau’s cultural sector would be vital.