The 17th Cross-Strait (Xiamen) Cultural Industries Fair (CIF) officially opened on October 29 at the Xiamen International Conference & Exhibition Center. Leaders and delegates attending the opening ceremony and touring the exhibition hall included Long Mingbiao, executive vice president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits; Wu Bin, vice governor of Fujian Province; Zheng Ping, full-time vice president of the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots; and Lin Cheng-tse, former acting chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT).
Hosted by the Taiwan Work Office of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Radio and Television Administration, and the Fujian Provincial People's Government, and organized by the Xiamen Municipal People's Government, this year's fair is being held under the theme "Shared Heritage, Envisioned Future". Guided by the framework of "Anchoring the core with multiple sites, linking across the city, and empowering through digital intelligence," the event aims to deepen cultural exchanges across the Taiwan Strait and foster high-quality growth in the cultural industries.
The opening ceremony featured the release of the "Report on the Integrated Development of China's Cultural Industries (2026)," offering think-tank insights into the evolving landscape of cross-Strait cultural industry integration. In an online collaboration, master brick-carvers from Fujian and Taiwan worked remotely in a relay to jointly carve the Chinese character "Fu" (blessing) into a red brick, with customized "digital identity cards" generated through 3D scanning and laser-based digital replication; guests used these cards to symbolically lay bricks for a shared homeland to mark the opening. Performers representing the "Twelve Flower Deities" led the exhibition tour, blending traditional Chinese elegance with digital innovation to highlight the shared cultural roots, integration, and coexistence across the Strait, establishing the fair's core focus on cultural inheritance, digital empowerment, and emotional resonance.
Running for four days through November 1, the fair spans a main exhibition area of 60,000 square meters. It features a comprehensive cultural industry pavilion alongside five specialized thematic zones: Fujian-Taiwan cultural exchange, intangible cultural heritage, cross-Strait youth cultural and creative integration, technology + culture and tourism, and cross-Strait cultural and tourism consumption. Bringing together more than 1,000 institutions from home and abroad, the event covers 11 countries as well as 20 Chinese provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, and Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, serving as a comprehensive platform for exhibition, exchange, and collaboration.
The fair has designated 21 representative cultural parks and landmarks across Xiamen as satellite venues, which are hosting over 100 supporting events over a month-long period, including creative markets, pop-up art showcases, and intangible cultural heritage experiences. In parallel, the "Nihao Wenbo" (rendered here as "Hello CIF") digital platform was launched online, using digital twin technology to replicate exhibition venues and offer around 1,000 selected cultural and creative items for sale in a year-round digital space. More than 20 high-level industry service events are being held during the fair, covering investment promotion, supply-demand matchmaking, industry-specific exchange, and city-specific promotional sessions. These sessions are designed to accelerate the concentration of industry resources, facilitate the sharing of development opportunities, and deepen cross-Strait cultural integration and practical industrial cooperation to inject lasting momentum into cross-Strait integrated development.