Honorable Consuls and Madams,

Respected Senior Officials from Ministries and Committees of Central Government,

Dear Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good evening,

First of all, on behalf of Shenzhen Municipal Government and the Organizing Committee of the 2006 China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industry Fair, I would like to extend my gracious welcome and sincere appreciation for your presence at the Banquet tonight.

In order to present you a full picture of ICIF, May I herein make a brief introduction on the general arrangement and basic content of this event.

The ICIF, sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television, the General Administration of Press and Publication, the Guangdong Provincial Government and Shenzhen Municipal Government, is the sole national-level, international, and comprehensive cultural industry fair in China. The first session of ICIF was successfully held in November 2004. Starting from 2006, the ICIF will be held in Shenzhen every year from May 18th –21st.

With the purpose of setting up a comprehensive platform for the exhibition of international cultural products, the transaction of cultural elements and the communication of cultural industry information, intensively displaying the latest achievement of cultural industry at home and aboard, promoting the major cultural industry investment projects in China, encouraging the domestic cultural products and service access to the international market, and strengthening the international communication and cooperation in this field, the ICIF is the business opportunity for international investors to purchase the Chinese cultural products and to finance the major cultural industry projects in China. Endowed with board market, China will firmly abided with the commitment for the entrance into the WTO and open our cultural market step by step, while the ICIF will provide the foreign investors and foreign cultural products with a very good opportunity entering into the Chinese market.

The main venue for ICIF 2006 will be placed in Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center, which owns the total area of 105,000 square meters and 4500 standard booths. With the theme of "Cultural China & Creative future", the ICIF 2006 consist of nine exhibiting halls according to its classification, which include, the China Cultural Industry Achievement Trade Hall, Vocational Education Hall, Creative Design Hall, Media Technology Hall, Chinese Publication Hall, Animation and Game Hall, Arts and Crafts Hall, calligraphy and painting Hall.

The China Cultural Achievement sector include the "Cultural Cities Exhibition", "Cultural Industrial Park and Base Exhibition", "Prominent Cultural Enterprises Exhibition", "Export-Oriented Cultural Products Exhibition"; "Exhibition of Excellent Vocational Colleges and Institutes, and Training Institutions"; "the First Session of China International Vocational Education Facilities Exhibition"; "Decoration and Design Exhibition", "Exhibition of Packaging Design, Products Design and Graphic Design"; "Exhibition of Famous International Media and Press", "International Movie and Digital Technology Exhibition"; "Exquisite Printing Products Exhibition", "Printing Equipments Exhibition"; "Exhibition of Producer and Performing Art Show", "Performing Art Equipment Exhibition"; "Audio and Visual Products Exhibition", "Exhibition of Electronic Publications, and Educational Digital Products and Related Cultural Articles"; "Exhibition of Animation and Game Media Producer, National Industry and Education and Research Base", "Animation Derivatives Exhibition"; "Exhibition of National Treasure of Arts and Crafts, Exquisite Arts and Crafts Collection and Printing and Calligraphy of Chinese Celebrities".

The cultural industry transaction sector include "Auction for a Series of Theme Printings and calligraphy, "Auction for Refined, Rare Collection of Arts and Crafts", "Auction for the Oil painting of Prominent Young Oil Painter", "Auction for Design Work", "Auction for Exquisite Curio and Antiques", "Book Procumbent and Order function for library"; "Promotion for Cultural Project in China".

The cultural industry forum and conference sector include, "International Cultural and Trade (China) Forum", "China Cultural Development Strategy Forum", "Cultural Industry project Investment and Financing Seminar", " Brand on Arts and Crafts and the Informational Progress of Cultural Industry Forum", "Chinese Performing Art in the 21st Century Forum", "Chinese Digital TV and Movie Industry Development Forum", "Meeting of the Managers from the Newspapers-Printing Plants".

The cultural celebration functions sector includes, "Cultural Festival for International City Series", "Chinese Contemporary Drama Week", "Symphony Concert", "International Jazz Music Week", and "International Movie Week".

The cultural industry awards include, "China Cultural Creativity Award", "Wenpeng Award on China Cultural Industry", "Zhongguo Award for Cultural industry", "Appraisal and Presentation of Baihua Award for Chinese Arts and crafts", "Presentation Ceremony for Chinese Creative Design Award".

Dear friends, Should you want know more about ICIF, please browse the websiteWWW.ICIF.COM, where provides its relevant information.

Ladies and gentlemen, Shenzhen, the host city of ICIF, is neighboring the oriental pearl, Hong Kong. Initiated by Mr. Deng Xiaoping, Shenzhen is established as the first special economic zone in China. During the past 25 years since established, Shenzhen developed overnight from a backward bordering town to a prosperous modern city, and its general economic strength ranks the forefront among the large and medium cities in China, by which it as the demonstration of China's opening-up policy and the modernization drive. As the window of the opening-up policy and a newly emerged migrant city, Shenzhen owns its unique humanism character, which not only inherit, graft and innovate the classical cultural tradition, but also refer to, absorb and mix together the multi-cultural elements in the world, and the open-minded, forgiving and innovative feature has taken shape in Shenzhen. Shenzhen is also regarded as the civilized, harmonized and beautiful costal city that is comfortable for living. Shenzhen is successively titled as the International Garden City; Top 500 Cities of Environmental Protection by UN, National Civilized City, National model for Urban Green Land, National Hygiene City, and National Garden City. In recent years, Shenzhen comprehensively implement the strategy of developing the city on the basis of culture, putting forward the plan to develop cultural industry as the fourth pillar industry after the hi-tech industry, modern logistic industry, the finance industry, and formulate a series policies and measures to encourage and support the development of cultural industry. We are firmly believe that, the development of cultural industry in Shenzhen and China will definitely provide much boarder space for the foreign buyers and investors who are looking for business opportunities in China.

Last but not the least, on behalf of the Shenzhen Municipal Government and Organizing Committee of ICIF, I would like to extend my invitation to everybody present here. Welcome to ICIF 2006, where you will realize the splendid Chinese culture. We hope that, through the today's communications between us, especially through your introduction and publicity about ICIF to rest of others, we will see more and more foreign investors and buyers and intermediary institutions realize and get to know ICIF, and come to this event to make exhibition and purchase, and look for their investment projects and potential partners. It is our sincere hope that through ICIF, we will set up a bridge between China and rest of the world for the communication and collaboration of the cultural industry, help and benefit each other, and build a brighter future hand in hand.

Wish everybody a cheerful mood and a happy life, thank for your attention.

Ms. Yan Xiaopei, Vice Mayor of Shenzhen