The culture industry in East China's Zhejiang province is experiencing great progress, growing into one of the pillar industries in Zhejiang and a strong force to the province's economic development.

The culture industry's value added worth reached 320 billion yuan ($48 billion) in 2016, among the best in China. According to Zhejiang's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), the amount is expected to surpass 480 billion by 2020, representing eight percent of the province's total GDP. The total economic output of the culture industry will reach 1.6 trillion yuan in three years.

Behind the numbers, there's a solid industrial base.

At the 13th China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industrial Fair in May, five Zhejiang culture companies were revealed to be among the country's top 30 companies, hitting a record high.

At the end of 2016, 36 culture companies had gone public. Today there are more than 100,000 private companies and individuals engaging in the region's culture industry.

Many of these companies present an increasing number of popular works, ranging from movies and TV dramas to animated games. The works, such as Monkey King: Hero is Back and Feather Flies to the Sky, reflect the positive values of society and are highly praised by the public. Older performance arts like Yueju Opera are reimagined to appeal to a younger audience, and Zhejiang's gaming and animation industries are quickly developing with the application of new technologies.

A "culture+internet" project was initiated at the beginning of 2017, making it clear that the combination of culture and the internet will be the focus in the next stage of development.

Zdool, a big data platform for Zhejiang's culture industry, offers all-round data analysis and industry assessment services to over 200,000 companies and government departments. Migu Digital Media provides 460,000 copyrighted books for nearly 500 million smartphone users. With the power of internet technologies, advanced cultural products have become widespread in the province.

Technologies aside, financial innovation is infusing the industry with more vitality. A group of financial service platforms, including industrial funds and banks, are exploring efficient ways to maintain the rapid but steady growth of the culture sector in Zhejiang.

Cultural products from Zhejiang companies have been well received abroad, with many works exported to other countries and more international cooperation agreements reached.

Every year, many cultural exhibitions and fairs take place in Zhejiang, including the China International Cartoon & Animation Festival, the Hangzhou Cultural and Creative Industry Expo and the Ningbo Cultural Industries Fair. Through these events, Zhejiang culture is becoming recognized by a global audience.

The latest data show that in the first half of 2017, the import and export volume of Zhejiang's cultural services exceeded 2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.73 percent.