5-Year Plan: Shanghai to Boost Cultural Soft Power

Shanghai aims to enhance its urban cultural soft power and further integrate culture, commerce, tourism, sports, and exhibitions over the next five years. Locals can also look forward to a host of new cultural venues and large-scale events that will enrich their daily lives.

In 2025, revenue from Shanghai's culture and related industries surpassed 1.4 trillion yuan (US$206 billion) for the first time, with enterprises in new cultural formats posting a 10 percent year-on-year revenue increase, accounting for 56.6 percent of the city's total cultural revenue.

The same year, Shanghai received 9.36 million inbound visitors, cementing its status as "China's top gateway city for inbound tourism."

These achievements are set to be further consolidated over the next five years. According to the detailed guidelines of the "Shanghai 15th Five-Year Plan for Building a Socialist International Cultural Metropolis," the city, from 2026 to 2030, will focus on developing two major cultural function clusters along the Huangpu River and Suzhou Creek – namely "Surrounding People's Square" and the "Expo-Qiantan-West Bund" area – while accelerating the construction of large indoor performance venues.

The city will expedite the building of the Shanghai Museum North Branch and West Branch, the Shanghai Museum of Industry, the new site of the China Welfare Institute Children's Palace, while encouraging the development of industry-specific and private museums, as well as enhancing supporting facilities around existing cultural venues.

Over the next five years, Shanghai will establish a new state-owned performing arts group. The number of performances held citywide annually is set to reach 65,000.

The Shanghai Grand Opera House, with a total floor area of 146,000 square meters, will open in October after more than six years of construction.

The city will host over 12 major culture-commerce-tourism-sports-exhibition events annually, each drawing more than one million visits.

The "15-minute public cultural service circle" at residents' doorsteps will be advanced, with pilot reforms to separate ownership and usage rights of public cultural facilities. Quality public cultural service facilities will undergo digital and visual upgrades.

Film and television production, art trading, performing arts, eSports, tourism, sports, internet culture, and creative design are all advantageous industries for Shanghai. Over the next five years, they will benefit from clustered development and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven digital empowerment, with supportive policies for the internet, gaming, eSports, and micro-drama sectors.

Shanghai's original artistic and cultural creativity will be further elevated, enabling "home-produced" cultural works to tell compelling Chinese stories and extend their influence overseas.

Major international and domestic sporting events in Shanghai will also be further integrated with the city's culture, tourism, and commerce.

The UCI Track Cycling World Championships, the 2028 Olympic Qualifiers, and homegrown events like the Shanghai Marathon and Shanghai River Regatta will serve as exemplars in expanding synergistic effects and global visibility.