Comic and animation festival kicks off in Guangzhou

The 16th China International Comics Festival and the 20th CACC Golden Dragon Award Ceremony kicked off in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Tuesday, amid high expectation of industry insiders to further promote the development of the country's comic and animation industry and help build the Guangdong provincial capital into a city of comic.

In addition to awarding ceremonies and keynote speeches, officials, business executives, producers, cartoonists and industry insiders discussed the development of the comic industry through industry summits, special theme lectures and salon talks, seeking the expansion of exchanges and cooperation during the event.

The comic and animation industry has a market scale of more than 100 billion yuan ($14.29 billion), said organizers.

Song Yiyi, a comic and animation producer, said China had its own Chinese animation in 1922, and Chinese animated films have maintained stable growth in the past decades.

"Despite the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic in the previous years, the box office of Chinese animated films has exceeded 7.2 billion yuan, so far, this year, more than the highest figure in 2019, demonstrating that the Chinese animated film market still has great potential in the future," said Song.

Most of the audiences of animated films are young people, she added.