The cultural reforms in Shenzhen have been given strategic importance second only to the economic reforms that have made the city a boomtown from scratch, senior city officials told a meeting yesterday.

The meeting, attended by deputy Party chief Li Yizhen and other officials in charge of culture, came after a national conference on cultural reforms in Beijing last week, where central government officials gave the thumbs-up to Shenzhen's initial cultural reform efforts, and asked the city to blaze a new trial in the reforms.

Li, deputy secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, said developing the cultural industry will be a priority of the cultural reforms.

Substantial progress must be made this year in building cultural industry parks, Li told the meeting, which was also attended by Wang Jingsheng, director general of the Publicity Department of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the CPC, and Vice Mayor Yan Xiaopei.

The Second China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry Fair, to be held in Shenzhen later this year, is on the top of the authorities' agenda. Li said the government will also increase spending in constructing cultural facilities and improving cultural services for the public.

Zhang Xiaohu, director of the Cultural Reform Office under the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, said Friday in Beijing that the creative industries should become a highlight of Shenzhen's future development, citing the Dafen Oil Painting Village in Longgang District as an example that the city's cultural industry is thriving.

(Shenzhen Daily April 4, 2006)