Some Surveys from Ningbo Creative Cluster

Posted: April 17th, 2009 | Author: Shui Jing | Filed under: creative industries | Tags: creative class | No Comments »

According to Consumption Daily (2008), the Ningbo government has planned to construct at least 8 creative industry parks around the Ningbo city, almost each district will have at least one creative industry park. It is important to point out that the Ningbo city has six districts including Yinzhou District,Haishu District,Jiangdong District,Jiangbei District,Beilun District and Zhenhai District. At present, most of creative industry park were completed.

Yinzhou District will have the 128 Creative Park. Nowadays the first stage construction of 128 Creative Park had been finished and 27 enterprises were moved into this Creative Park. Accoding to Wang(2009),he is the deputy district mayor in Yinzhou District. He indicated that the 128 Creative Park will be a base for creative industry, industrial design and technology incubator.

Haishu District has the Loft 8 in which our group has already been there. Here is the Official website for Loft 8. According to Lou(2008), he is the assistant manager for Loft 8 Project. He said that Ningbo is lack of general idea of creative industry. Therefore they decide to form an investigation group and go to the Beijing and Shanghai city to learn knowledge about creative industry. He also emphasised that 798 in Beijing was their reference sample and gave them lots of experiences. There are more than 14 enterprises in the Loft 8, they refer to industry design, creative planning and fairs and exhibitions area.

Jiangdong District has the most creative industry park in Ningbo. For example, Jiangdong District has the earliest Ningbo creative industry park 228 Creative Industry Park. It used to the Tianyi Toy Factory. Some staff in this 228 Creative Industry Park mentioned that the most important thing they would like to be here is the atmosphere. Persons of the same profession can talk with each other freely. And anther place is The Third Factory Fashion Block. This is also the first creative industry loft project in Ningbo. The last creative park in this district is Ningbo Industry Design and Creative Block. It is a major project in Ningbo urban planning.

The sinking down plaza in Ningbo Industry Design and Creative Block

Jiangbei District rely to the old bund, it had established 1847 Bund for their creative industry project. According to the news from government information website in April of 2009, one of the firms in the 1847 Bund is named Gaode Design Studio and the sales volume of this studio from January to October in 2008 even still increased 20% during the economic crisis. The second creative park in this district is 134 Creative Valley, which we had been on last week by haphazard.

134 Creative Valley

This valley already attracted 47 firms. From some reference I found that this place had achieved output value nearly RMB 20 million in 2008,and the rate for efficiently use the idle assets reach to 90%.In addition, recently the most famous one in this district is The Wealth and Creative Harbour. It is the place integrates the culture from water, the culture from creative industry and the leisure culture. This place even plans a exhibition to introduce the creative industry in Ningbo.

Wealth and Creative Harbour

For Beilun District, it has a famous Beilun Port. Accoding to Ningbo News, Beilun District have a Hailun Piano Factory, as a result, government of Beilun District decided to develop piano cluster in this district.

Software industry is the centre industry in Zhenhai District, and the district has Innovation Valley .Zhenhai District depends on college resource to develop their unique creative industry. As we know, the science Park of Ningbo University is located in Zhenhai District. According to Ningbo government’s work report, the first-stage construction of Innovation Valley includes three sectors. They are Science Tour, East China Software Outsourcing Service Base and Innovation Valley Research and Development Building. The Second Phase Project consists of Software Department in Peking University Ningbo Branch Northern Europe Industry Park etc. Until now, some international enterprises have entered into this park, such as Det Norske Veritas and IQSS etc. Accoding to government analyse report from Zhenhai District government website, it is illustrate that the cluster effect were revealed obviously in 2008.Innovation Valley had achieved output value about RMB 14.17 billion because of the cluster management.

Innovation Planning of Innovation Valley(click to the picture)

Che(2008), who is the President of Ningbo Creative Industry Association, pointed out that People in Ningbo need to utilize for the well-developed private economy and private enterprises. On the one hand, Private enterprises are big market customers for the creative industry, and on the other hand, they also can be the main body of the creative industry.

Lou(2008), who is the staff from Jiangdong District State Statistics Bureau, explained two development models in Ningbo creative industry. The first model is that the enterprises invest creative industry themselves. The other one is that although some enterprises are not related to the creative industry, they explored this field during the business process, such as Oulin Kitchen Company. They corporate with China Academy of Art for designing a music kichen, it is import music element in this design and attracted lots of consumers in 2006 Housing Exibition.

The catchword frequently used for describing Ningbo creative industry is that, “let the made in Ningbo into create in Ningbo.

One more thing about how to develop the Ningbo creative industry, Lin(2008),he is the director of Brand Operation in Ningbo Beyong Company. This company is a pioneer for textile industry in China. He stated that, Ningbo as a second tier city, it must be find out a appropriate approach or direction to develop their creative industry, and it will be more practical. For Ningbo, such as electron, clothing, stationery, and light industrial product etc are the characteristic industry; therefore, creative industry will tend to industry design, fashion design and advertising industry. Because the characteristic industry and creative industry mentioned above could perfectly merged.

References

Ningbo Economy edits 2008, ‘Creative industry:Ningbo start-  up’,Journal of Ningbo Economy,2008,no.2,pp 17-19.

The Official Website of Ningbo Economy Committee 2009. Retrieved April 10,2009 from http://www.nbec.gov.cn/en/mec.htm

Chen,Kuohai 2007, ‘The research proposal of Ningbo industry design and creative block.’,Journal of Association for Science Forum,2007,no,4,pp42-44.

Wang,Jici 2004, ‘The suggestion of the research on local indwtrial cluster’,Journal of Economic Survey,2004,no.2,pp 53-57.

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