Editor’s Note
The Art and Antiques Zone at the CIIE has solidified its role as a premier cultural showcase, bringing global masterpieces to a wider audience.
At the 7th China International Import Expo (CIIE), the Art and Antiques Zone, making its fourth consecutive appearance, has become the area with the most artistic flair and cultural atmosphere on site.
This year, the zone covers an area of 2,000 square meters, featuring 11 overseas cultural and art institutions and enterprises presenting over 60 artworks. World-renowned auction house Phillips and antique jewelry institution Vmuse have participated for multiple sessions, while prominent international galleries and institutions like Italy’s Galleria Continua, Switzerland’s Glocal Art Project SA, and Hong Kong’s Oriental Auctions made their CIIE debut with heavyweight cultural relics and artworks.
Visitors to the zone can appreciate the romantic imagination of French master Marc Chagall and the abstract style of German master Gerhard Richter, admire representative works by art market favorites Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami, and KAWS, enjoy masterpieces by Chinese painting masters Wu Dayu, Zao Wou-Ki, and Chu Teh-Chun, and get a close-up view of Vmuse’s European court treasures, including a Medusa bracelet inlaid with a 65-carat emerald.
The entity responsible for the recruitment and operation of this zone is the Shanghai Free Trade Zone International Culture Investment & Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Shanghai FTZ Cultural Investment”).
Under the guidance of relevant departments including the National Cultural Heritage Administration, Shanghai Customs, the Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau, and the Free Trade Zone Customs, and with the support of the Waigaoqiao Group, Shanghai FTZ Cultural Investment has been authorized by the CIIE Bureau for four consecutive years since 2021 to handle the recruitment and operation of the CIIE Art and Antiques Zone. It provides a full-process solution for overseas exhibitors from over 20 countries and regions to participate in CIIE with their cultural relics and artworks, actively facilitating the transformation of hundreds of exquisite art pieces from “exhibits” to “commodities.”
On November 8, as one of the key events of the 6th Shanghai International Artwork Trade Week, the 9th Shanghai Dialogue Summit Forum and the opening of the 2024 Shanghai International Art Book Fair took place. The forum released the “Shanghai Free Trade Zone Cultural Industry Blue Paper.” Data shows that in 2023, the Shanghai FTZ handled 11,234 pieces of cultural relics and artworks with a total value exceeding 12 billion yuan. Since its establishment a decade ago, the cumulative value has reached 100 billion yuan. The cultural sector of the Shanghai FTZ, as an important part of Shanghai’s cultural industry, has also been fully showcased in various activities.
Although the volume of cultural relics and artworks is small, their value is high, contributing to boosting total trade volume and trade capacity. However, unlike general goods, the “journey into the country” for cultural relics and artworks often involves increasingly difficult hurdles and stringent requirements for constant temperature and humidity, as well as security.
As the operating entity for the cultural sector within the bonded zone, Shanghai FTZ Cultural Investment has been deeply involved in both the “front stage” and “backstage” of CIIE and the Shanghai International Artwork Trade Week in recent years. It has launched a “one-stop” service covering the entire chain for overseas cultural relics and artworks, including customs clearance, entry, warehousing, display, transaction, agency, tax exemption, delivery, and settlement.
This integrated service model not only ensures the safety of cultural relics and artworks but also smoothens the channel for the return of overseas cultural relics. A large number of heavyweight overseas artworks by masters such as Zhang Daqian, Fu Baoshi, Wu Guanzhong, Claude Monet, Marc Chagall, and Yayoi Kusama can now appear at exhibitions more conveniently and efficiently. From the 4th to the 6th CIIE, a total of 39 exhibitors participated, facilitating transactions for 136 cultural relics and artworks with a total transaction value of 1.835 billion yuan. The Shanghai FTZ has become the “entry point” for international cultural relics and artworks.
To better serve participating institutions, Shanghai FTZ Cultural Investment leverages the platform, resource, and client advantages of the FTZ’s cultural sector to provide overseas exhibitors with a one-stop solution. This includes pre-exhibition policy interpretation, investment promotion and exhibition organization, and exhibit entry services; during-exhibition bonded display, setup/dismantling, and purchase services; and post-exhibition payment and delivery, exhibit return shipment, and value-added services.
Simultaneously, Shanghai FTZ Cultural Investment has established a regular communication mechanism with relevant guiding departments to ensure effective policy coordination. This enables exhibitors to enjoy the “Five-Piece Tax Exemption” preferential policy, thereby gaining more transaction opportunities and broader cooperation.
Shanghai FTZ Cultural Investment has also formed a professional CIIE investment promotion team to strengthen efforts in attracting clients from the entire cultural relics and artworks industry chain. By promoting CIIE and special policies related to cultural relics and artworks, it has attracted renowned enterprises from multiple countries and regions including the UK, the US, and Hong Kong, China. This includes hosting the FTZ Art Season within the Shanghai International Art and Antiques Bonded Service Center—the world’s largest and most advanced bonded service complex—to leverage the FTZ’s advantages in gathering transaction entities in advance and boosting exhibition participation and transaction volume.
In 2024, the Shanghai International Art and Antiques Bonded Service Center was reviewed and approved by the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce and included in the CIIE’s “6+365” platform list, participating in creating a “Never-ending CIIE.”
According to requirements from the National Cultural Heritage Administration, for tax-exempt cultural relic exhibits sold within China during the CIIE period, after completing a series of subsequent procedures such as purchase, payment, customs clearance, and delivery, they will remain in China. There is also encouragement for these cultural relic exhibits that enjoy preferential policies to provide public welfare display services to society. For three consecutive years, Shanghai FTZ Cultural Investment has organized the “Sea Breeze—CIIE Cultural Relics and Artworks Public Welfare Exhibition” at the Pudong Biyun Art Museum, not only enriching public cultural life but also further amplifying the spillover effects of CIIE.
In the next step, Shanghai FTZ Cultural Investment will continue to implement the “Five-Piece Tax Exemption” preferential policy, actively create the “Shanghai Solution” and “Pudong Model” for institutional openness and forging a first-class business environment in the field of cultural relics and artworks. Starting from a higher baseline, it aims to amplify the spillover effects of various policies, leverage Shanghai’s hub role in both domestic and international openness, smooth the channel for the return of overseas cultural relics, and lay a solid foundation for the sustainable, high-quality development of social cultural heritage protection and utilization.
Data shows that from 2013 to 2023, the total value of cultural relics and artworks handled for entry and exit in the bonded area of the Shanghai FTZ reached the scale of hundreds of billions of yuan. In 2023 alone, the bonded area completed nearly 18,000 pieces/sets of cultural relics and artworks for entry and exit operations, including nearly 6,000 pieces/sets declared as cultural relics. Throughout 2023, Shanghai hosted 863 cultural relic auctions with 157,029 lots offered and a total turnover exceeding 5 billion yuan.
In 2022, the “Shanghai International Art and Antiques Trading Center” joint trading entity was launched, with Shanghai FTZ Cultural Investment responsible for its operation. In April 2023, the China Guardian 2024 Spring Fine Art Exhibition opened, marking the joint trading entity’s first-time assistance for a leading domestic auction house to complete its “Pudong debut.”
According to Hu Huanzhong, Chairman of Shanghai FTZ Cultural Investment, leveraging the newly introduced “Several Provisions on the Transaction of Cultural Relics and Artworks in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai” in 2022, the joint trading entity successfully held a new auction session on the evening of November 7, 2024. For the first time in mainland China, a foreign-funded auction enterprise auctioned works by certain foreign artists who passed away after 1949, collected from overseas.
The cultural sector of the Shanghai FTZ is also continuously expanding its business scope. It operates top-tier cultural and museum resources such as the National Museum of China and the Palace Museum, jointly develops cultural and creative products with annual sales exceeding 100 million yuan; enriches cultural activities and elevates their capacity, hosting nearly 500 cultural performances and over 200 activity exhibitions in 2023; and expands the scale of the Shanghai International Art Book Fair to provide a cooperation and exchange platform for domestic and foreign publishers, art institutions, etc., promoting Chinese culture’s “going global.”