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The Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr Tsang Tak-sing; the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macao Special Administrative Region (Macao SAR), Mr Cheong U; and the Director General of the Department of Culture of Guangdong Province, Mr Fang Jianhong, today (April 19) attended the 13th Greater Pearl River Delta Cultural Co-operation Meeting in Hong Kong.
At the meeting, the three places signed a memorandum of intention on Cantonese opera, pledging further co-operation on the conservation, continuation and development of the artistic genre.
More than 150 delegates including officials and representatives of the relevant authorities of the arts and cultural sector from the three places joined the meeting and related activities. The Director of the Office of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Affairs of the Ministry of Culture, Ms Hou Xianghua, also attended the meeting.
In his concluding remarks, Mr Tsang said that today's meeting was successful, with a series of concrete collaboration projects mapped out. "The results demonstrate that Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao have attached greater importance to the profound significance of developing the arts and culture as well as the synergy effect of the cultural sectors of the three places," he said.
Mr Tsang noted that the three places had laid a solid foundation by establishing a cultural co-operation mechanism for ten years. They could now forge ahead in a systematic, well-planned and focused manner, exploring new modes of co-operation and opening up new areas of development.
He proposed that future co-operation could focus on three areas, namely rolling out more outstanding art works and productions, strengthening the network of public cultural service systems and developing a healthy and vibrant Internet culture.
Reviewing the tripartite cultural co-operation, Mr Tsang said that the three places had made progress on various fronts, opening up more opportunities for performing artists as well as strengthening the influence and competitiveness of the cultural industries of the Greater Pearl River Delta in the Mainland and beyond through the sharing of cultural resources.
On performing arts, the three places agreed that in the coming year they would further refine the mode of co-operation and reach a clearer consensus on arrangements for staging selected roving performances in the three places.
In addition, the three places will further enrich the content of the Greater Pearl River Delta Cultural Information Website to enhance the effectiveness of this platform in disseminating cultural information. To encourage creativity and participation of web users in enriching the website, the three places will organise a photo competition on architectural heritage. Competition entries will be shown on the website. The three places will also strengthen cross-boundary ticketing services.
In the coming year, the three places plan to hold new large-scale roving exhibitions on cultural relics, including an exhibition on the Lingnan School of Painting - Works of Chao Shao-an and an exhibition on Lingnan archaeological achievements over three decades, as well as to further enhance exchange and co-operation on public library services. On cultural and creative industries, the three places will organise the "Chinese Creative Industries Forum 2012", "Hong Kong Comic Camp" and other collaboration projects, fostering co-operation and development of the related industries.
Since November 2002, the Department of Culture of Guangdong Province, the Home Affairs Bureau of the HKSAR and the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao SAR have established a framework for strengthening cultural co-operation within the Greater River Pearl Delta region. An agreement on cultural co-operation between Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao was signed in August 2003. Meetings have been held in the three places from time to time, and six working groups have been set up to implement and follow up on the recommendations for co-operation in different areas.
Six working group sessions were held yesterday afternoon (April 18) to discuss specific topics, namely exchanges for performing artists and co-organisation of cultural programmes, mutual exchange of cultural information, co-operation in museum services, co-operation and exchange in public libraries, intangible cultural heritage, and research into the development of cultural and creative industries.
Ends/Thursday, April 19, 2012
Issued at HKT 18:31
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