The Information Office of Shanghai Municipal Government held a press conference on August 29, and Vice Mayor Chen Qun introduced the latest situation and development of the “Several Opinions on Accelerating the Innovation and Development of the Sports Industry in the City” and the preparation works of the 16th Shanghai Sports Games. Shanghai Sports Bureau Director Xu Bin, Vice Director Xu Qi, Vice Director of Shanghai Development and Reform Commission Zhang Xiong and Shanghai Education Commission Vice Director Ni Minjing attended the press conference and answered questions from the press.

The sports industry is a new growth driver for the national economy. It is an important foundation and basis for Shanghai's “four major brands” and an important support for building “healthy Shanghai”. The overall consideration of “Several Opinions on Accelerating the Innovation and Development of the Sports Industry in the City” is that in response to the key points and difficulties in the development of the sports industry discovered through large-scale investigation, through the introduction of “Several Opinions on Accelerating the Innovation and Development of the Sports Industry in the City”, Shanghai seeks to deepen the reform and strengthening policy guidance and support. It will also continue to enhance the city's international competitiveness, influence and radiation of the sports industry, promote the sports industry to achieve better and faster development, and make greater contributions to achieving high-quality development and high-quality life.

“Several Opinions on Accelerating the Innovation and Development of the Sports Industry in the City” consists of 30 articles which cover overall requirements, key development areas, the construction of a modern sports market system, and the improvement and implementation of the sports industry policy (hereafter referred to as "the 30 articles in the sports industry").

First of all, in the general requirements section, it emphasizes four basic requirements, namely, adhering to the international standards and striving for world's first-class level; persisting in reform and innovation, expanding openness; adhering to policy guidance and free market; adhering to synergistic linkage and integrated development. It has made clear that we must optimize and develop four levels of sporting system, namely: the industrial system led by the competition performance industry and the fitness and leisure industry; the market system with the internationally competitive sports enterprises as the main body; the sporting space system featuring the concentration of major sports facilities and industries; the supportive system which include industry wide supportive measures and commercial service environment. Three stages of objects are proposed: by 2020, the total size of the sports industry in this city will reach 200 billion yuan, and the overall development level of the sports industry will be in the forefront of the country; by 2025, the total size of the sports industry in this city will reach 400 billion yuan so that it would be able to rank among the world's most developed cities in the sports industry; by 2035, it will reach the level of development of the sports industry that is compatible with the global city of excellence.

In terms of key development areas, it has designated the five key points for accelerating the development of the city's sports industry. First, the city is to accelerate the construction of an international metropolitan for sports events. The focus is to improve the layout of major sports events, create high-level professional events, expand the influence of local original sports events, and improve the quality and efficiency of the event. The main measures include: optimizing and perfecting the government subsidy method to replace subsidies by rewards; improving the quality standard system of sports events and the comprehensive evaluation system of sports events; establishing a dynamic monitoring mechanism for sports events. Secondly is to upgrade the leisure sports industry. On the one hand, enrich leisure sports programs, supporting the development of some leisure sports that can increase consumption such as skating, skiing, hiking, motorcycles and voyage. On the other hand, enhance leisure sports infrastructure, map out the middle-term and long-term planning for public sports facilities, endeavor to carry out the universal coverage plan of sports space and facilities, and create the “convenient sports circle within a 15 minutes’ walk”. In addition, optimize the layout of leisure sports industry, and focus on fostering many leisure sports clusters and sports industry demonstration zone with leisure sports service as the core. Thirdly, improve industry system of the sports service industry. Improve the service of stadiums, promote the “two modification project”, which means modifying the function and mechanism of public sports facilities, and popularize the separation of ownership rights and management rights. Activate the sports intermediary service market. Promote the development of sports media. Fourth, turn Shanghai into an international sports trade center. Attract a batch of transnational sports corporations to set up headquarters in Shanghai, carry out incentive policies such as rewarding funds and offering convenient entry and exit procedures. Expand the trade scale of sports service. Explore the possibility of policy experiments for sports service industry in Shanghai free trade zone. Fifth, enhance the ability to develop and produce sports gears. Promote the transformation and upgrading of sports equipment manufacturing. Strengthen technical innovation of sports manufacturing. Support the establishment of national quality supervision& testing center of sports gears, and launch pilot schemes of relevant national standards.

As for the construction of the modern market system for sports industry, “Opinions” emphasize the importance of insisting on the basic orientation of market-oriented reform and specify five focal points: firstly, motivate market subjects, and foster domestic leading & world class comprehensive sports enterprises; secondly, innovate the development mode, and accelerate the clustering and integration of sports industry; thirdly, enlarge sports consumption; fourthly, promote cooperation and exchanges, coordinate the development of sports industry in the Yangtze river delta region and enhance the international cooperation and exchanges of sports industry; fifthly, deepen the “ delegation of authority, supervision and service” reform. Key points include: (1) adjust the duties of the sports executive, central sports association as well as single sports associations, and separate the governance and the management; (2) accelerate the formulation of regulations after abolishing the examination and approval procedure of sporting event, and establish a “one-stop” service mechanism; (3) by building jointly with the national ministry, strive to locate national equity transaction platform in Shanghai; (4) speed up the establishment of trade credit system covering sports organization, sports enterprises and sports staff and set up serious dishonesty list system. Being the emerging industry& green industry, sports industry on the whole at the fostering stage needs more powerful policy support, although it develops fast. Further optimize the business environment, guide the clustering of funds, lands and talents, and further motivate sports enterprises to innovate. To realize this, “Opinions” propose policies in five aspects: lead with financial fund, ease the tax burden, enlarge financial support, ensure land supply and enhance the reserve of talents. Main features include: First is that projects of sports industry can use land for industrial or research & development purposes under the category of “industrial projects.” Second is that all market entities are encouraged to use existing properties or land such as factories, warehouses, traditional commercial streets to develop sports industry. On the premise of conforming to urban planning, the land usage and users can be kept without change. Third is to promote cooperation between banks and companies with the support of building up financing platforms for sports-related small and medium-sized enterprises. Fourth is to guide insurance companies develop policies covering sports facilities responsibility and accidental sports injury. The fifth is to encourage retired athletes get involved in sports industry.

The 16th Shanghai Sports Games, organized by the Shanghai Sports Bureau and the Shanghai Education Commission will be held between September 28 and November 10.

Shanghai hosts one citizen games and one comprehensive games every four years. The target of the games is to implement the national strategy of promoting Olympics spirits and encouraging people to exercise. The city will strengthen the rules of “combining sports with education,” and supervise the city’s youth sports training, combining sports with education and public sports services for the youth with a “broad sports” perspective. The city will stress the training and selection of sports talent, while encourage more participation of the youth in sports for a healthier mind and stronger body to serve Shanghai’s construction of “a world-known sports city” and “a healthy city.”

This year’s Shanghai Sports Games has the session for the youth and the session for college students. The session for the youth has each district as a competition unit, while the session for the college students has each school as a competition unit. The Shanghai Sports Games has “competition events,” “exhibition events” and “participation events.” The first two events are held between late August and early November, while the “participation events” run through the year.

This year’s Shanghai Sports Games will have the following features:

1. Serving Olympics and the National games, with a focus on the nurturing of new athletes. The session of the youth is designed according to the Olympics and the national games. It has 31 major events and 39 sub-events. Apart from triathlon, it covers almost all events in the summer Olympic Games as well as curling and figure skating in the winter Olympic Games. The “exhibition events” will takes those newly included in the Olympic Games and the National Games, and sets up 10 events such as rock climbing, skateboarding and ice hockey. The games will continue to have registration requirement on key events like track and field, swimming, diving, rowing, canoeing, football, basketball, volleyball, table tennis, badminton, tennis, gymnastics, shooting, archery, fencing and bicycling, in order to guide the districts in the strengthening of the training of reserve talent for key events.

2. Prioritizing awards to encourage talent nurturing. The games will set up prize board for the youth session, guiding districts to better train professional athletes. It will have the “outstanding award” for Olympic Games and the National Games, to stimulate athletes to win for Shanghai. Besides, during the Shanghai Sports Games, the city will have campaigns for the youth session like “Future Stars,” “Top ten Coaches for the Youth” and “Excellent Headmasters for Sports School” to set up models for the future development of the sports industry.

3. Hold more activities to create a better atmosphere for sports development. The purpose of setting up the activities is to allow more young people to participate in sports meet through collaboration between different departments, linkage between different districts and social participation. The activities include the sunshine sports grand league led by the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Education, talent competition from thousands of schools and classes, eagle cup children’s competition led by the Shanghai Youth League Committee, the family and kid competition led by the Shanghai Women’s Federation, youth community sports games held by various districts and events organized by some social forces.

On May 23, after the Shanghai government set up the 16th sports games organizing committee and held the first plenary meeting, the preparation work for the sports meet has been launched. The organizing committee has completed work for the youth and students from universities. It is estimated that 30,000 people will participate in the competition. The rules of competition have been issued. The organizer, supervision unit, competition venue and competition timeline have also been clearly defined. Shanghai is going to hold preparation work for the sports meet which is scheduled to be held on September 28. The event security work of opening ceremony has already been launched and will be sponsored by China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co Ltd to provide personal accident insurance for all athletes, coaches, referees and related staff.

In addition to the above preparation work, this year's games also set special requirements for anti-doping and competition regulation. The committee formulated and issued the notice on anti-doping work in the 16th Shanghai sports meet and other relevant documents, implemented the anti-doping education qualification admission system, carried out various educational activities and anti-doping inspections and ensured a clean sports meet will be held this year The committee formulated and issued the 16th Shanghai Municipal Competition Supervision Plan and carry out special training and education for the project center and associations and sports departments of different districts. The commission supervises the selection of the main body, rules of the event, athletes' cultural examination scores, the qualifications of the athletes, the allocation of the funds and management. Relevant departments will also go deep into the competition area and the stadium to strengthen the on-site supervision.

In terms of publicity, the preparation work which the organizing committee is prepared to carry out includes: First, timely release of information. On the official website of Shanghai Sports and sports meet and the Shanghai Youth Sports WeChat account, the announcement and relevant information will be released timely. Second, the organizing committee will cooperate with media to launch the lifestyle and shining youth photography competition. The organizing committee will set up special editions and columns on various media platforms and cooperate with the live broadcast platform to produce live streaming projects. The organizing committee will broadcast opening ceremony of sports meet. Third, Shanghai is going to produce the promotional videos. The videos will be broadcasted in the city’s public outdoor big screen, Oriental Pearl TV and subway light-emitting diode screen.