B&R brings new opportunity to internet companies

The Belt and Road Initiative is expected to offer new market expansion opportunities for Chinese internet companies, as an additional 3 billion people, mostly from nations along the ancient Silk Road, will get connected to the internet in the next decade, a leading technology mogul predicted on Wednesday.

Despite an under-developed internet communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, less-developed nations could leapfrog from an outdated technology in the past, without the drag of an outdated infrastructure buildup, once they get wired into the latest technologies, said Robert Xiao, CEO of Perfect World, a Beijing-based online gaming and motion pictures conglomerate, during an interview in Qingdao, Shandong Province.

This could be also a boon for internet companies vying to enter the market with low cost and entry threshold, he told China.org.cn

"As a company specializing in online gaming and motion pictures production, we will fully embrace the Belt and Road Initiative and incorporate it into the company's globalized strategy," he said.

Proposed by China's President Xi Jinping, the Belt and Road Initiative, consisting of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, offers great synergy in efforts to boost policy coordination, facility connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people bonds along ancient trade routes.

Cultural communication via games and films

"During the past eight years, we have been constantly introducing our products, especially gaming ones, to our overseas customers," said Xiao. "Slowly, we have begun to see that games, films and TV dramas can not only be served for entertainment purposes but also vehicles to carry certain cultural elements to the outside world in an effective way."

Xiao said that many of the company's games were developed based on Chinese ancient stories and myths presented in traditional Chinese artistic styles.

"As one of the most profitable online games developed by the company, Perfect World International (PWI) was actually inspired by the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shan Hai Jing), a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and folklore," said Xiao, revealing that some users actually got interested in Chinese history and culture through playing the game.

Another example is a video game adapted from Chinese Kong Fu novels, which became so popular overseas that it actually boosted the original book's sales in South Korea by over 20 percent as soon as the franchised game hit the market, he pointed out.

Several highly rated Chinese films and TV dramas, including "Love is not Blind," "Beijing Youth" and "To the Elderly with Love," were introduced to other countries as national gift carried by President Xi Jinping during his overseas visits.

"Chinese elements could catch on slowly and quietly among the foreign audience through entertainment genre, just as how American culture became pervasive through TV series and films," said Lian Jie, president and chief executive of the company's film division.

Last year, Perfect World and Universal Pictures announced the completion of a US$500 million financing deal running up to five years that will make the Beijing-based maker of films, television programs and online games a major investor in one of Hollywood's most successful studios.