Cebu creative industry gets international funding

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu creative sector will finally reap the fruits of its efforts as it will soon receive a grant from international funding agencies for the development of a roadmap for the industry to maximize its potential and take advantage of the multi-billion dollar creative market in the world.

“The initiatives are here, we just have to make a serious action plan and identify Cebu’s strength in the creative sector. We will soon formulate a roadmap that will be funded by international funding agencies,” said Nelia F. Navarro the chairperson of this year’s Creative Summit, which is one of the highlights of the Cebu Business Month (CBM 2011).

This is needed specially that Cebu will be declared as part of the ASEAN City of Culture, to be proclaimed by the ASEAN Ministers of Culture this coming July together with the cities of Vigan, and Manila.

Navarro said the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) and Trade Related Technical Assistance (RTTA) are among the funding agencies that expressed support to further develop Cebu’s creative sector.

Aside from these funding agencies, Navarro who also sits as the provincial director of the Department of Trade and Industry said CITEM has already included the creative sector specifically the visual arts to be included in their international fairs campaign, and had already formulate programs that could help market the Filipino visual artists’ works.

Cebu in particular will also seek help from the national Culture and Arts for support, as the creative sector in Cebu still has to do a lot of leg works in order to be united and establish a one voice.

The challenge, before the roadmap will be completed, is on the gathering of data from the different sub-sectors of the creative industry, Navarro said.

Last year, the Creative Cebu Council Inc., was established in a bid to address varied concerns of the broad creative industry.

Led by advertising expert, Zen Pastoriza, the council has initially prioritized the two major issues which is to achieve recognition of the Creative Industry and players should “be proud of their talents. Second, is to make the industry world-class player in order to accept the challenge of being an emerging contributor to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

A survey from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) showed that the creative sector in the Philippines is contributing US$592 million, with 5.2 percent of the country’s entire GDP. This does not include the creations made by non-IPO registered products.

Navarro said Cebu has to lead in the formulation of solid creative industry sector, although she is anticipating a challenging work ahead, considering the very wide scope of industry’s included in the creative sector.

Initially, the Council enlisted nine sub-sectors in the Creative Industry in Cebu, these are; the Advertising and Design; Animation; Architecture and Landscape; Film and Photography; Literature and Publishing; Multi-Media Arts; Music; Theater and Performing Arts; and the Visual Arts group.

While in the past, Cebu is only know as the home of world-class designers in furniture and fashion, this time the province aims to be to equally promote cutting-edge creativity across the creative sub-sectors, Navarro said.

This is the reason why professional roadmapping should be started with the help of creative industry experts.

Navarro urged the creative industry players to support the bid to organize the industry, in order for Cebu to take off in the world market in terms of attracting market in the creative sector. (FREEMAN)