THE WORK |
|||
38 |
The Philippines today does not have a Creative Economy agenda. There is no government institution explicitly responsible for the growing of our cultural and creative industries either for domestic or export value creation.
HALLYU: THE KOREAN WAVE Similar to Japan’ s experience, the 1997 Asian Financial crisis led to government’ s prioritization of creative and cultural industries to help the country emerge from the crisis. According to an article from The Economist( Soap, Sparkle & Pop: Korea’ s Soft Power, 9 August 2014), Kim Dae Jong responded to the crisis by mandating the prioritization of IT innovation and Content( film, TV, pop music, games). The low cost copycat manufacturing strategy of the chaebols( South Korea’ s industrial conglomerates) was obsolete. South Korea needed to pivot from industrial copying to innovation and creation.
From this prioritization, Samsung emerged as a leading innovator in home, entertainment, mobile and appliances. Seoul Broadcasting System became a major exporter of Korean Telenovels, and K-Pop broke into the world stage, driving entertainment trends and breaking YouTube records. Last but not least, gaming companies like NC Soft collectively contributes around 12 times the revenue of K-pop to South Korea’ s economy.
|
While Japan has had a few years head start in exporting its culture and creative content, South Korea has found a huge audience base hungry for their content: China, for clear historical reasons, retains a strong cultural and political animosity to Japanese culture. Put simply, Cool Japan isn’ t cool in China, but Korea is. Korean Telenovelas, K-Pop, Fashion, Tech and even Korean cosmetic surgery have all found a massive and popular consumer base in the Chinese. Beyond consumption, Chinese economic planners are carefully studying the Korean hallyu experience to pivot their own brand proposition from“ Made in China” to“ Created in China”. It may not be long before the next wave of Cultural Cool will come from China.
WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM JAPAN & KOREA Creative Economy experts often cite Japan and Korea as lighthouse models for countries pivoting from Industrial to Creative economies. In both these cases, one cannot ignore the importance of both the Public and Private sector stakeholders role in defining a Creative Economy agenda with clearly defined revenue objectives, growth strategies, sector priorities, and roadmaps for building external markets for creative and cultural exports. Today the Japanese and Korean creative economy strategies have fueled billion dollar industries, outpacing the growth of their international manufacturing economies.
The Philippines today does not have a Creative Economy agenda. There is no government institution explicitly responsible for the growing of our cultural and creative industries either for domestic or export value creation. The DTI’ s Comprehensive
|
National Industrial Strategy makes no mention of the role of creativity in our economic development. It is simply not a DTI priority. The National Commission for Culture and The Arts is tasked with preserving our cultural heritage, however it has no mandate to transform arts and culture into an economic driver.
While DEPED is including arts and design tracks in the new K to 12 program, and TESDA has included Animation, Gaming and Graphic Design in their certificate programs, these commendable efforts are not matched with a national agenda to develop the industries that will absorb these talents.
For the Private Sector, while we have many creative industry associations for advertising, film, interior design, visual arts, performing arts, broadcasting, digital marketing, animation, etc., most if not all of these associations focus mainly on sector specific self regulation, member protection and domestic market development. Only a select few look at developing Filipino creativity for international markets. I believe there is a great opportunity for the Philippines to be a regionally competitive creative economy, contributing the same if not greater value to our GDP as the BPO Service Sector. But we cannot just hope for this to happen. There is urgent need for the different public and private sector stakeholders to come together to create a Creative Economy Master Plan. While we are a country of tremendous creative talent, I fear our window of opportunity for becoming a regional creative economy powerhouse is fast closing as Japan, Korea, as well as China, India, Singapore, and our ASEAN neighbors accelerate their own creative economy agendas.
|
adobo magazine | July- August 2016 |