Global culture forum gets underway in Shanghai

More than 100 scholars, government officials, and industry representatives from the fields of culture, art, and literature from home and abroad gathered offline and via video linkup at the 2021 Global City Culture Forum (Shanghai), which opened on Thursday.

Foreign officials and guests at the forum came from countries including Germany, Canada, Italy, Egypt, Norway, Argentina, Japan, and South Korea.

The participants shared their viewpoints and research results on enhancing cultural space building in cities, strengthening specific cultural name cards for cities, improving cultural diversity and vitality, and promoting the development of the digital cultural industry.

The forum was jointly hosted by several government departments and institutions, including Shanghai's Hongkou district government and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS).

"The annual forum is a platform to step up cultural exchanges and interactions between cities and a way to allow Shanghai to learn from experience of other world cities in cultural building," said Xu Jiong, deputy director of the publicity department of CPC Shanghai committee.

"The theme of the forum 'digital transformation and enhancement of city's soft power' echoes the city development as Shanghai has been making efforts to build itself into a digital-driven city to involve all social sectors and engage all residents," he said.

Sub-forums will continue on Friday and Monday, covering themes such as Shanghai's development vision and the soft power of city culture in the new era.

The Institute of Urban Culture Innovation affiliated to SASS was unveiled at the opening ceremony of the forum. The institute operators said the facility intends to bring academia and industries together to promote urban culture innovation in the country. Domestic and foreign research operations in the area will be invited to conduct partnerships.

Officials from Hongkou, where the forum is being held, said that the district aims to become a new benchmark for urban development and a region where China's new development theory is put into practice.