Taiwan-Japan digital content forum kicks off

19-Jul-2012 Intellasia | Focus Taiwan | 7:01 AM

Taipei, July 17 (CNA) The Taiwan-Japan Digital Content Industry Forum and Business Matching kicked off in Taipei Tuesday, offering participants an exchange platform to create global business opportunities in the digital content industry.

At the one-day fair, co-organised by Taiwan’s Industrial Development Bureau and the Japan Interchange Association in Taipei, participants will be able to discuss cooperation projects and develop new opportunities in fields such as animation, 3-D film and electronic learning, the organisers said.

A total of 15 Japanese corporations will have 120 one-on-one meetings with Taiwanese companies, double the 60 meetings that were held at last year’s forum in Tokyo, Japan, the organisers said.

Among the Japanese attendees are special effects developer Shirogumi Inc., 3-D filmmaker NHK Media Technology Inc., printing company Toppan Printing Co. and motion picture production company Digital Frontier Inc.

“Our purpose is not only to make digital content more interesting to attract consumers, but also to drive the development of the whole digital content industry,” the bureau’s deputy director-general Chou Neng-chuan said at the forum.

“Through Taiwan-Japan cooperation projects, we hope to improve the development of digital content in the global community, especially in emerging markets such as China,” he said.

The bureau has set several goals for Taiwan’s digital content industry in 2013, including reaching an output value of NT$780 billion (US$26.05 billion) and creating new investment of NT$100 billion.

The output value of the country’s digital content industry totalled NT$600.3 billion last year, up 14.89 percent from the NT$522.5 billion in 2010, the bureau said.

According to Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the market size of the digital content industry in Japan is currently around $150 billion and ranks second globally only to the United States.

However, exports of Japanese digital content to foreign countries account for only 5 percent of the country’s total exports, the ministry’s officials said at the forum.

To take advantage of Japanese content value, the key for sustained growth is to work on profit increase through export trade, the officials added.

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