Creative industries: MSAR should fund SMEs

The government should initiate funds for small and medium sized enterprises (SME) aimed at developing cultural and creative industries, Veronica Llorca from the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong said here yesterday.
The Beijing-Macau-EU cultural and creative industry cooperation and promotion agreement was signed yesterday by the three parties, in an event included in the 16th Macau International Trade and Investment Fair (MIF) running until tomorrow at the Venetian Macao.
Llorca, who is also project director of the European Union Business Information Programme of the European Chamber of Commerce, suggested Macau should “firstly integrate the creative industries into the economy and understand that it has an economic potential for creating growth and jobs”.
Secondly, she continued, “it [the government] should give funds to SMEs aiming to develop this area who don’t have access to external funding.”
According to the European representative at yesterday’s meeting, as a small market, Macau faces a lot of challenges that are common in small European countries. Going overseas, she said, is one of the main obstacles that need to be overcome.
“As usual, creative industries start as a very localised industry, so the challenge is in the internationalisation. However, we have seen that in the case of Macau it is used as a hub in China for different industries and it could be the same for creative industries,” she told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting.
Llorca believes that many European companies specialising in the area of creative industries are also looking at Macau as a gateway into southern China. Nevertheless, she still sees room for more exchange, investment and exchange of ideas – as well as internationalisation – between Macau and Europe.
“There is still very little information about Macau, but we have a lot of companies that have a lot of success here, for example, everything that is related to casinos and hotels for all the procurements such as lighting.
“We have a strong Czech company that does all the lighting and chandeliers and there are some other companies in the architecture [sector]. We have a lot of potential for Macau in this area and we are still developing. Later on, we’ll have another architecture company from Scotland,” she said.
From China’s side, director of the Beijing Cultural and Creative Industries Promotion Centre, Mei Song told reporters that “Macau attaches great importance to creative industries and has a strong position in the exhibition business,” adding that its “biggest advantage in these areas lies in its mix between Oriental and Western cultures.”
Mei also suggested the MSAR place its bets on its cultural uniqueness, in order to “become a big platform and an important window of culture”.
The Chinese expert added that Beijing creative companies are interested in bringing their products and performances to Macau.
Executive director of the Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute, Irene Va Kuan Lau, remarked that Beijing and Macau have a “huge amount of potential” to strengthen collaboration in the area of cultural and creative industries, besides trade and investment, tourism and environmental protection.
She reinforced the fact that Beijing has a strong creative and cultural industry and Macau could benefit from that.                        

A.L.