LONDON, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The United Kingdom (UK) and China enjoy great opportunities to cooperate in cultural sectors like art, gaming, sports, film and television, a UK official has told Xinhua in a recent interview.
"China is a very, very important trading partner for the UK. We always have good trade relationships to China, stretching back many, many years, so we want to continue to find new ways to trade," Rupert Daniels, director of services and skills at the Department for Business and Trade, said.
To strengthen dialogue and cooperation, the 2023 Shanghai-London Screen Industry Forum was held in central London on Saturday, bringing together officials, business leaders, and artists from the two sides. Several China-UK co-productions were showcased during the event.
"What you've got here is filmmakers and you've got producers, and you've got actors here. It's the creative ecosystem, and you see already great collaborations," Daniels told Xinhua during the forum.
Giving an example of closer UK-China cooperation, Daniels mentioned sports. He said the UK has a great history of sports, and so does China.
"How can we find ways to work closer together on the sports, whether it's performance technology so athletes can continue to generate higher and greater performances, or it's in sports television, sports media, gaming, training using new technologies like virtual reality?" he said.
Daniels noted a UK company which attended the 2023 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in September, and it works for many Premier League football clubs.
"When an athlete is injured, their virtual reality headsets help them rehabilitate. This is a technology used here in the UK, which can easily be used in China, and in fact anywhere in the world," he said.
Speaking of his impression of the recent development of China's cultural industry, Daniels recalled his trip to this year's CIFTIS in Beijing. "I was hugely impressed," he said, noting that there has been a huge change in the past decade in the quality of the outputs and film, television.
"From a technology perspective, everything is on mobile. You have WeChat and Alipay. You see how that mobile ecosystem is also helping you consume content. It's unbelievable, the pace of change, the quality of the program, the quality of the content," he said.
