(FILE)

Among the dazzling Chinese New Year films this year, several big-budget animations were screened almost at the same time, indicating the coming of a new spring in China's animation industry.

Nevertheless, the deluge of new animations hasn't come easily. For instance, the much-loved animation Little Big Panda, which cost 350 million yuan ($53.3 million), took producers several years' hard work to complete.

China used to be an outstanding animated film-making country, and the Chinese School was one of important schools of art in the animation industry. As early as 1926, when the first animated film from Europe was being completed in Germany, Chinese animation pioneers, the Wan brothers, were also making the first of the country's animation works almost at the same time. And from the first Asian long animation film The Princess of the Iron Fan, which was produced by the Wan brothers in 1942, to the animation masterpiece The Monkey King in 1965, the Chinese animation film industry experienced a series of high points.

But, after that, the development of the Chinese animation industry began to go downhill, as it didn't keep abreast of the trend of the market economy. A survey then showed 90 percent of the animations Chinese youth loved were foreign made.

Revitalization

In 2010, the Central Government proposed a comprehensive development policy for the industry, in an attempt to put China on the top list of animation creators and producers in five to 10 years. To this end, key animation enterprises were entitled to preferential tax policies.

On August 25, 2010, 35 animation works were recognized as important productions by the Chinese Ministry of Culture (CMC). They received an allowance of 6 million yuan ($920,000) for intellectual property protection.

In 2010, original animation production ran to more than 200,000 minutes, while in 2004, it was only 21,800 minutes. The total market size of the industry reached 20.8 billion yuan ($3.15 billion) last year.

Liu Yuzhu, Director of the Cultural Industry Department of the CMC, said animation is considered one of the most promising industries in the 21st century. Chinese animation production has already stepped into a rapidly expanding era.

Wang Jin, assistant General Manager of China ACG Group Co. Ltd., said, besides traditional broadcast channels such as cinema and television, new media platforms such as the Internet, cellphones and other mobile devices have become important new channels. At the same time, derivative products of the animation industry are also developing a big market.

Hu Zongjing, Director of Movie Business Division of U'young Media, says animation production will be one of the fields with low risks in the Chinese movie market during the next five years. Its box office and derivative products will make up 25 percent of Chinese film production output value, and may even reach 33 percent. "Investment of animated films is relatively easy to control. Animations can also provide stable derivative product incomes. In movie industry, animated films could be called a money-making machine," Hu said.