Chi Jiangang, a 60-year-old professor at Beijing Normal University, reads arts news first every morning, and often goes to best-rated shows together with his wife.

Nowadays, performance tickets for the "tenor princes" or "saxophone king" costing several hundred or even a thousand yuan (US$120) sell like hot cakes.

"This autumn will see a good harvest," said Zhang Yu, general manager of the China Performing Arts Agency (CPAA), the country's largest agency of its kind.

China has become an international arts center, Zhang said. Backing the 1980s, the country's international cultural exchanges did not rate at all.

However, national arts galas such as the Beijing International Music Festival and Shanghai International Arts Festival have become widely-acclaimed events. Each year, the Ministry of Culture (MOC) launches more than 2,000 Sino-foreign cultural exchanges.

Zhang Xinjian, director of MOC's marketing department, said cultural consumption has become very popular among Chinese people in recent years.

In 1998, expenditure on entertainment, education and culture ranked second after the paying for clothes. In 2001, the outdoor book fair held in downtown Beijing attracted nearly one million visitors and earned 70 million yuan (US$8.4 million).

Experts predict China's spending potential in the cultural sector will reach 550 billion yuan (US$66.4 billion) by the end of 2005.

Cultural consumption is becoming an effective way to enrich oneself instead of merely a sign of prosperity. Modern types of entertainment, such as pottery making and rock climbing, have become popular among young people, and holiday outings are one of the top choices for ordinary families.

A survey in east China's Zhejiang Province showed that 45 percent of families planned to spend from 500 to 10,000 yuan (US$60 to US$1208) on cultural activities in the next five years. And 84.5 percent of families claim more Chinese people have increasing interest in collecting arts and calligraphy works and antiques.

Statistics show that in 2000, China had over 224,000 cultural companies with fixed assets totaling 44.2 billion yuan (US$5.39 billion) and annual profit reaching 3.18 billion yuan (US$384 million), which rose 40 percent and 13.8 percent respectively over the previous year.

Booming market demand has encouraged Chinese artists and nurtured their creativity. In 2001, China's 2,590 artistic troupes attracted 474 million domestic audiences, with 61 percent of performances held in rural areas.

Overseas companies also see potential in China's cultural sector, with more than 2,000 performances by foreign artists held in Beijing last year.

Zhang Xinjian said the sound development of China's cultural sector resulted from good government guidance and arts popularization. With China's entry into the World Trade Organization, the government has vowed to better guide the sector and absorb more excellent foreign arts.

(Xinhua News Agency October 7, 2002)