International Forum on Creative City and Industries
October 27, 2011
Shanghai, China
Statement by Mehri Madarshahi
President, Melody for Dialogue Association
Good morning, Mr Chairman, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen;
I have the privilege to bring you greetings from Mr Hans d’Orville, Assistant Director-General of UNESCO who could not attend this meeting in person due to other obligations. The General Conference of UNESCO is in session and will last until mid Nov. He asked me to convey to you the best wishes for successful deliberations of this Forum.
It is equally a privilege for me to attend this meeting and address the important topics before it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, as you are aware on 10 February 2010, Shanghai was nominated as the UNESCO City of Design.
Why Shanghai? For many reasons:
The city has an open and inclusive attitude with an avant-garde spirit:
Any visitor or resident feel this Inclusivity. Shanghai as you know has the highest percentage of international residents in China and over
500,000 foreigners are living in this city.
It organises various design events, such as:
Shanghai International Creative Industry Week, the first creative industry week in China
Shanghai Art Festival, (launched in 2007), the largest e-art festival in the world
Shanghai Design Biennale, a platform for design industries on domestic and international level
China Joy, (launched in 2002), the exhibition on comics, animation, entertainment and broadcasting, attracting around 120, 000 visitors
Shanghai International Film Festival, which was launched in 1993, encouraging creativity among Asian film-makers to be present internationally
Shanghai International Art Festival (launched in 1999), encouraging the exchange between Chinese and Western cultures
Government participates in development of the design industry through various funds in cultural foundations, IC industry, and service industries
The city has a great number of design institutions, including Convention and Exhibition Industries ( the largest among them was Shanghai Expo of 2010 attracting over 50 million visitors), Advertising, Gem Trade Association, Software Industries, Industrial Design, and, Garment Trade companies, etc.
In addition, the city has a great number of educational institutions on creativity , design and Media
What are the benefits for the city?
The designation of Shanghai as the Design City, encourages economic development by boosting creative industry and creative economy:
In 2009, total output of creative industry was about 390 billion RMB and its added value reached to 11.48 billion. This accounted for 7.7% of GDP, with 950,000 employments
We applaud the initiative of Shanghai city government for its 5-year strategy plan (2011-2015) to promote creative industry economic transition, cultural development and social sustainability as a very important step on the road to many more success.
Thank you very much Mr Chairman.