ROC Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai outlined policy directions for promoting Taiwan’s cultural and creative sector on the local, international, commercial and digital levels May 24.
“The main goal is to create a sustainable, continually developing culture by elevating aesthetic standards, integrating cultural institutions and turning artistic value into commercially viable products,” Lung said at a luncheon introducing department heads in the new Ministry of Culture.
“What the MOC is giving the public in its first week of existence is a blueprint for the next 10 to 20 years,” she added.
Domestically, the cultural resources of 7,835 selected villages will be brought together to promote the growth of small-scale cultural industries and encourage young people to stay in or return to their hometowns, Lung said.
At the international level, the Ministry of Culture will open eight new cultural centers in strategic locations yet to be named, adding to those already operating in Paris, New York and Tokyo, to market Taiwan’s unique films, music, art and humanistic thinking in multilingual translations, she said.
On the commercial front, as part of efforts to maintain Taiwan’s economic competitiveness, the ministry will establish an online platform for artists and innovators to find funding and market their works. It will also set up a multifunctional authorization mechanism to spur the circulation of cultural and creative content.
For example, in publishing, if a novel can be adapted in film, TV series and comics, as well as translations, it will create more added value, Lung said.
At the digital level, she continued, the MOC will work to establish integrated art and culture mobile services, as well as resource databases to facilitate the sector’s development.
As for cross-strait cultural exchanges, Lung pointed out that Taiwan is a free and open society and that the government would therefore only act as a facilitator by encouraging civic exchanges between the two sides and removing barriers to such contacts.
One aspect ripe for development is cross-strait collaboration between cultural administrators, in areas such as museum operations and the preservation of cultural artifacts, she added.
Lung said her ministry would also like to hold a cross-strait forum on cultural policy proposals in response to globalization, changing demographics, declining birthrates and diminishing natural resources. (SB-THN)