China’s digital culture sector is expected to see robust growth as new-generation information technologies have become the core driving forces for the development of the division, an industrial report showed.

In particular, the commercial use of 5G technology is expected to bring significant changes to the digital culture sector, according to a digital culture industry trends report recently released by the Development Research Center of the State Council and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

The report showed that China’s leading internet enterprises were seeking greater international presence. Netease’s third quarterly report in 2018 indicated that its overseas game revenue accounted for 10 percent of its total revenue. Last year, the actual sales revenue of the country’s independently developed online games in the international market grew by 15.8 percent year-on-year to $9.6 billion, much higher than the domestic growth rate of 5.3 percent.

In addition to capital and products, China has started to export technologies in the digital culture sector, said Yang Xiaodong, a senior researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council.

Tencent has exported original animation works to Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the U.S. and several countries and regions in Southeast Asia.

However, China needs to elevate the global competitiveness of its cultural sector, said Zhang Xiaoming, a senior culture researcher with CASS, adding that originality of cultural products will still be key to its international competitiveness.

The report also called for stricter copyright protection and effective use of copyright in response to the rapid development of the digital culture sector.