Official data released on September 2nd shows that Jiangsu Province's cultural enterprises above designated size generated revenue of 784.5 billion yuan in the first half of the year, marking a 5.7% year-on-year increase. This growth rate outpaced the national average by 1.1 percentage points. These robust figures depict a high-quality development landscape for Jiangsu's cultural sector, characterized by a steady industry foundation, vibrant consumption, enhanced services, and innovative business models.

Analyzed by industry segment, the three major pillars of cultural manufacturing, cultural wholesale and retail, and cultural services worked in tandem to solidify the industry's foundation. As the industry's core base, cultural manufacturing generated 297.4 billion yuan in revenue during the first half, a slight 0.1% increase. While overall growth has leveled off, this massive industrial scale of nearly 300 billion yuan serves as a ballast stone for Jiangsu's cultural industry, enabling it to weather market fluctuations and steadily advance. The province's cultural manufacturing sector is transitioning away from extensive growth and towards a high-quality development path centered on precision, internationalization, and technology. Leading companies in niche areas are now positioned at the top of the global industry. For instance, Changzhou Lingtong Exhibition, the province's sole company selected for a national cultural and tourism technology innovation research project, provides exhibition equipment covering 97% of domestic professional venues and exports products to over 156 countries and regions. Similarly, Yangzhou Qinchuan Optoelectronics, deeply engaged in electronic paper display technology, holds a global market share exceeding 95%. It serves as a core partner for numerous renowned domestic and international companies and sets the technical standards and market landscape for electronic ink displays worldwide.

The cultural wholesale and retail sector continued to invigorate the consumer market, achieving revenue of 212.9 billion yuan in the first half, an 8.0% increase, becoming a primary driver of consumption growth in the province's cultural industry. This steady rise in growth is underpinned by the sustained momentum in new consumption areas such as the "Guochao" economy, cultural and museum IPs, and the integration of culture and sports. The crossover impact of cultural IPs has been remarkably effective. In April, the Jiangsu Pavilion made its debut at the Hong Kong International Licensing Show, allowing the province's premium cultural and museum resources to step out from the Yangtze River Delta and gain national and global visibility. At the show, the "Little Pink Furnace" fridge magnet from the Nanjing Museum was highlighted, with annual sales approaching 400,000 units. The Suzhou Museum actively pursued cross-sector collaborations, licensing over 70 brands and launching nearly a thousand cultural and creative products. Furthermore, the fusion of culture and sports is creating new consumption scenarios. Since the new "Su Super" football league season began in April, the first 11 match weekends attracted over 17 million tourists from outside the province, a 26.1% increase in visitor numbers. "Following Su Super to Travel in Jiangsu" has become a new gateway for cultural tourism consumption, effectively boosting growth in related sectors such as tourism, retail, and dining. "Su Super" - Nanjing fans show their support

The cultural services sector posted revenue of 274.2 billion yuan in the first half, a 10.5% increase, leading the growth rate among the three major industry segments. Unlike the asset-heavy cultural manufacturing sector, cultural services leverage core strengths in talent concentration, creative innovation, and digital technology to produce high value-added outputs, permeating areas like urban renewal, corporate transformation, and consumer livelihoods. With the continuous improvement of the province's high-quality industrial ecosystem, numerous creative studios, digital content companies, and design service firms have established roots in Jiangsu. They consistently supply superior creative content and services, driving coordinated development and iterative upgrades across the industry's supply chain, pushing the cultural industry's transition from scale-driven to value-driven growth. 2026 AI Product Application Expo

Examined by sector, the core cultural industries in Jiangsu enhanced their quality and efficiency in the first half, while related sectors consolidated steadily, raising the industry's overall value. Data indicates that core cultural fields achieved revenue of 375.4 billion yuan, a 6.8% increase, whereas culture-related fields generated 409.1 billion yuan, up 4.7%. The notably higher growth rate in core cultural fields signals a continuous optimization of the industrial structure. Exterior of Hongchuan Yard Vitality Park in Liangxi District, Wuxi

Viewing by industry category, several niche sectors demonstrated vibrant growth and impressive figures in the first half of the year. Creative design services performed exceptionally well, generating revenue of 109.6 billion yuan, a 15.1% increase, leading the growth among the hundred-billion-yuan track sectors. Creativity and design are no longer just an embellishment but a core driving force deeply embedded in manufacturing upgrades and organic urban renewal, using creativity as a lever to catalyze industrial transformation and city revitalization. The century-old First Silk Factory in Suzhou has completed its upgrade, reopening as a cultural industry park. It is nurturing the "AI + Design" emerging industry within its old red-brick factory buildings and creating new scenarios for silk consumption. Nanjing is vigorously advancing its urban renewal projects, with 338 projects slated for the year. Through the renovation of 56 neighborhoods and old factory zones, it is creating space and introducing new business forms for the creative industry. Whether it's blockbuster TV dramas boosting local cultural tourism consumption or creative design exhibitions activating idle industrial spaces, the multiplier effect of creative empowerment is continuously being released.

News and information services are accelerating their transformation and upgrade, achieving revenue of 62.8 billion yuan in the first half, a 14.7% increase. New media business forms are constantly expanding the boundaries of news and information services, innovating models of information production, dissemination, and operation. Diversified, scenario-based, and lightweight information service models are emerging, building a new industrial landscape of omnichannel communication and round-the-clock service.

Cultural investment and operation became the fastest-growing niche industry, with revenue of 9.8 billion yuan in the first half, a substantial 17.3% increase. This rapid growth reflects strong capital market confidence in Jiangsu's cultural industry. Capital is increasingly concentrating in high-quality areas such as digital culture, cultural and creative parks, and content creation. Industrial funds continue to be established, with the first half alone seeing three cultural industry special funds, each at the 500 million yuan level, launched in Nanjing, Wuxi, and Nantong. These funds provide ample financial support for the growth of SMEs in the cultural sector, the implementation of key cultural projects, and the improvement of the industrial ecosystem. Information collection robot turns into an "AI doctor"

The deep integration of digital technology and the cultural industry has spawned numerous new business forms and scenarios, making it the most dynamic growth pole for Jiangsu's cultural industry in the first half. Statistics show that the 16 industry sub-categories with obvious new business form characteristics in the province generated 235.1 billion yuan in revenue, a 13.5% increase. This rate is 7.8 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of cultural enterprises above designated size in the province and 3.9 percentage points faster than the national average growth for new business forms. The surge in new business forms is not a simple shallow combination of "digital + culture," but a qualitative upgrade catalyzed by cross-domain integration of technology, culture, tourism, sports, and manufacturing. Cultural industry parks across the province are clustering numerous digital culture enterprises, continuously launching new cultural products such as AI animation dramas, digital collectibles, virtual performances, and immersive experiences. The Wuxi Hongshan Relics Museum is leveraging AI technology to bring millennium-old Warring States artifacts to life, allowing them to "tell history" digitally. Changzhou has launched the province's first animation drama park project, Guoguo 1937, focusing on core AIGC tracks like AI animation and short dramas, building a full-chain industrial ecosystem from creative incubation, production, testing, to commercial application. Concurrently, digital technology has significantly lowered the barriers to cultural creation and restructured the production chain. The proliferation of tools like AI-assisted creation, digital modeling, and intelligent editing has given rise to numerous independent creative studios, fueling the continued growth of industrial clusters in online literature, digital animation, short videos, and webcasting. Enterprises in the Nanjing Online Literature Valley continue to deepen their overseas expansion, having exported over 16,000 quality works internationally. Additionally, the Zijing Award Cultural Creative Design Competition continues to unearth local creative talent, facilitating the marketization and industrialization of outstanding creative achievements and injecting fresh momentum for sustained industry innovation. "Civilizations Encounter – Appreciation" promotional event hosted by the Jiangsu Provincial Association for Foreign Cultural Exchange

The 784.5 billion yuan in revenue and steady 5.7% growth rate represent a solid testament to Jiangsu's cultural industry's resilience and innovation in the first half. It also marks a new starting point as the industry transitions into a stage of high-quality development. In the second half of the year, with the in-depth implementation of the "Jiangsu Provincial Three-Year Action Plan for High-Quality Development of the Digital Cultural Industry (2025-2027)" and the acceleration of the "Thousand Sails Competing" cultivation initiative, along with the continued roll-out of supportive policies, the innovation vitality, depth of industrial integration, and pace of business model upgrade will be further enhanced. Jiangsu's cultural industry is poised to continue its path of high-quality development focused on quality improvement and innovation-driven growth.