The park holds its groundbreaking ceremony in Binhai New Area

Perspective view of the park

(Chinadaily)The first National Animation & Cartoon Park, aspiring to be China’s Disney World, held its groundbreaking ceremony in Binhai New Area on July 1. Cai Wu, Minister of Culture, and Huang Xingguo, Mayor of Tianjin, attended the ceremony.

The park, covering 1 square kilometers and containing 620,000 square meters of floor space, will be completed in three to five years. Upon completion, it will be a center for researching, producing and trading cartoons, games and animation products as well as a training base for IT talent.

According to the blueprint, construction includes the American Comic and Animation Theme Park, the European Comic and Animation Theme Park, the Chinese Comic and Animation Theme Park and the Creativity Zone. The park is a key project co-built by the Tianjin Municipal Government and the Ministry of Culture—the only animation and cartoon park the Ministry has built with a provincial government. At the groundbreaking ceremony, Minister Cai said it is of great significance to develop the comic and animation industry to strengthen China’s national soft power and boost domestic demand, especially amid the current financial crisis.

The Chinese animation industry has made rapid development in areas including animation output, art quality, animation production technology, and talent training in recent years. According to statistics by the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), at the end of 2008 China had 5,473 animation art production studios, and the output of domestic cartoons increased from 12,000 minutes in 2003 to 131,042 minutes in 2008, a 28 percent rise from 2007.

China produced about 16 domestic animation films in 2008, a sharp increase from previous years. However, China-made animation products are still lacking in originality, according to some observers.