When the winners of the 8th annual China Creative Industry Awards (CCIA) were announced recently, the Datong-Guangling Paper-cuts Culture Industrial Park got a Best Park Award and joined the 2013-2014 list of key State enterprises involved in culture exports.

The park became a State Culture Industry Demonstration Base, in October 2008, and a key, State enterprises for culture exports for the 2011-2012 period. In 2012 it had 44.21 million yuan ($7.3 million) worth of output and earned 5 million yuan from exports. It covers a 40,000-square-metter area and was originally built by Zhang Duotang and his son Zhang Dong who came from a paper-cut family. It has a new paper-cut training school, China's first paper-cut museum, a national tourist attraction and has turned paper-cutting into an industry.

The CCIA was developed by the heads of the China International Cultural and Creative Industry Expo and China’s Copyright Protection Center There are 364 enterprises on the award list.

The annual awards are China's most authoritative and influential and were designed to be a model of independent innovation and to increase exchanges between industries and encourage talented people to enter the business in parks, enterprises, or as individuals.

Edited by Roger Bradshaw