China's cultural industry achieves double-digit revenue growth amid recovery

BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Major enterprises in China's cultural sector and related businesses saw their combined revenue return to double-digit growth in the second quarter of this year as the industry continued to recover, official data showed Sunday.

Their revenue rose 10.7 percent year on year in the second quarter, the first time for the quarterly income to post a double-digit increase since the third quarter of 2021, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In the first half of this year, these enterprises recorded 5.94 trillion yuan (about 832 billion U.S. dollars) of revenue in total, a 7.3-percent uplift from a year earlier and 3.3 percentage points higher than the first quarter, the NBS data showed.

The cultural industry maintained the momentum of improvement in the first half as the government support policies kicked in and unleashed market potential, said Zhang Peng, an NBS senior statistician.

Profits of major enterprises jumped 35.4 percent year on year in the first half, the data showed. Zhang attributed the growth to a low base of comparison and the rapid recovery of business.

Among the nine major categories of the sector, the cultural, entertainment and recreational enterprises, many of which are engaged in contact-based services, posted the strongest rebound.

Their revenue surged 76.2 percent year on year in the first half, 27.7 percentage points faster than the first quarter.

Enterprises featuring new business forms accounted for nearly 40 percent of the total revenue of the sector, with the income of online cultural and entertainment platforms up 26.9 percent year on year in the first half, according to the NBS.