Taiwan Creative Content Agency Aims to Boost Content Production in Three Years, Strengthen International Branding in Five
After the Jan. 9 promulgation by the president of the Organizational Act of the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (文化內容策進院設置條例), the Ministry of Culture is working to establish the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (previously referred to as "Cultural Content Institute") within the first half of this year. Looking to the future, the Ministry also aims to establish "national teams" to revitalize the market and provide support to cultural content industries including film and television, popular music, physical and digital publishing, games, fashion design, and the arts in terms of production and international development.
The Agency will also unveil its first Five-Year Plan, aiming to establish effective policy-oriented mechanisms for the support of cultural content industries in one year, boost content production in three years, and establish an international content brand, position Taiwan in the global market, and have comprehensive and professional intermediary operations set up in five years. The Agency will channel its energies along three main axes: cultural, technological, and financial development. Through efforts in each of these directions, it will work to accelerate cross-domain, cross-platform cooperation in cultural content and open up new economies for the content generated, helping take Taiwanese culture to the world.
An intermediary between the public and private sectors, the Agency will build systems for supporting the cultural content industries, promoting original Taiwanese content, and advancing cross-industry value-adds and IP digitalization. In addition, it will also introduce new technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), assist with new media platforms such as over-the-top (OTT) media services, and work to develop new commercial, marketing, digital innovation, technological, and developmental models that will spur innovation in the cultural content industries.
Improving Evaluation of Content Value and Establishing Industrial Policy Performance Evaluation
Once the Agency is formally established, it will select benchmarks for evaluating domestic cultural content industry performance in order to improve the accuracy of evaluations of GDP outputs and provide reference data, as well as setting out mechanisms for the evaluation of industrial policy performance.
In the future, the Agency will work to strengthen cultural content development and production, reinforce cultural financing systems, and expand domestic and international channels for delivery of cultural content. More specifically, such efforts will involve:
1. Cultural content development and application
2. Cultural financing systems improvement
3. Industrial talent and innovation development
4. Industrial production support and facility management
5. Expansion of domestic and foreign market channels
6. International distribution with national branding
7. Intellectual property and copyright guidance
8. Research into cultural content industry trends
In these ways, the Agency will aim to promote resource integration, cross-domain cooperation, and capital investment, form strategic alliances based on the "national teams" concept, build a national cultural brand, and create a new cultural economy.
A Two-Track Strategy: Ministry of Culture and Taiwan Creative Content Agency
To re-energize the market, a two-track strategy will be put into action, with the Ministry of Culture continuing to make use of timely subsidies and awards and the Agency focusing on investment and financing. Through this tactic, content production will be boosted, market share expanded, and the private-sector market invigorated.
The Agency will also act as a fire-starter by utilizing nearly NT$10 billion from the National Development Fund, and working with the private sector through joint investments focused on finding commercial partners with potential through investment evaluation and review. From there, through financing and underwriting mechanisms, these partners will inject the funds needed to stimulate growth. The Agency will also strive to match domestic producers with international platforms, seeking out joint projects with such major platforms as HBO, Netflix, and Fox, and providing strategic assists to cultural content industry players.
As for the expansion of financing, with the number of applicants for cultural and creative preferential loans increasing in recent years, the Agency will provide financial consultation and also assist in finding SME credit guarantee funds to help businesses get the loans they need and promote a robust cultural financing system.
Taiwan Creative Content Agency & Huashan Cultural Content Cluster — The Capital’s Twin Cultural Axes
In addition to the above, the Ministry of Culture has also proposed to the Executive Yuan the "Huashan 2.0 Cultural Content Cluster (華山2.0－文化內容產業聚落)" project, set to run from 2020 through 2024. To be established next to the Huashan Creative Park ROT Project on the site of a suspended BOT project, this project aims to establish a "cultural content cluster" which will be run under the auspices of the Agency. In concert with Huashan 1914 Creative Park, the Agency will create a pair of focal points for the cultural content industries in Taipei, helping bring together original content producers to jointly build a new international brand, market, and vision for Taiwan's cultural content.
Read the original press release here.