Beijing No 1 in exports of animation, comics, games

Beijing is now China's biggest exporter of animation, comics and games — dubbed ACG — as the digital business has grown rapidly in recent years.

A joint report from the city's culture and tourism bureau and the Beijing Animation and Game Industry Alliance said the output value of exported products from Beijing's ACG companies in 2020 reached 45.93 billion yuan ($7 billion), a 30 percent increase over the previous year.

Beijing's total output value for the ACG industry, including exports and domestic value, reached 106 billion yuan in 2020, accounting for approximately 19.3 percent of the nation's total industrial output value, the report said.

Beijing's output value for the total ACG industry last year was up by 32 percent year-on-year, as the city became a major research and development center for the sector.

As of November last year, there were 116,000 film and television companies in Beijing, ranking first in China and providing a strong engine for the city's digital audio-video industry, including ACG.