Despite its major role in boosting cultural integration, the First Silk Road (Dunhuang) International Cultural Expo held in Dunhuang, Gansu province, last week, has opened a new path for economic development in the region, local officials said.

Li Jun, deputy director of the Gansu Publicity Department, said the expo offers a win-win solution for countries along the Silk Road and serves as a platform for economic cooperation in the long term.

The province has signed 18 global cooperative agreements and 89 projects nationwide with an investment of more than 107.8 billion yuan ($16.33 billion). "This year's event not only showed us cultural diversity from different civilizations, but also created opportunities for Gansu to develop in various fields," Li said.

To promote an internet based economy, the province has signed four agreements with major online media in China - Toutiao.com, Sina.com, East day.com and www.gog.cn. Ren Liang, head of the Gansu Internet Information Office, said the province will build a new platform for technological cooperation and accelerate the internet plus strategy within the culture industry.

"We want to make our website a new media engine with national influence, diverse information and multiple resources," Ren said. He added that the strategic cooperation with www.gog.cn in Guizhou province is intended to strengthen training for local online retailers in Gansu and help them to set foot in poorer areas. "Through an e-commerce platform in the media, Gansu will upgrade its online services in cloud computing, technology and marketing," Ren said.

As a big culture and media company in Guizhou, www.gog.cn has helped local e-commerce businesses to tackle problems such as a lack of policies, assets and elites. It also plays a key role in advancing the region's economic transformation, he said.

During the event, a new app called Gansu Toutiao was launched by Eastday.com and Gscn.com.cn, the official website of the province.

It is an automatic mobile app based on data mining and new technologies, which provides users with the latest news and information from home and abroad. "Projects like that will add momentum to the development of cultural industries in Gansu and the e-commerce market in the region," he said.

Statistics shows that in the first half of this year, China had 710 million netizens and the popularity of internet reached some 52 percent, ranking first worldwide for nine consecutive years. The rate is 3.1 percentage points more than the global average.

Sea Pearl of the Gobi Desert Shines

Renowned as "the sea pearl of the Gobi Desert", Dunhuang in Gansu province has been a key hub along the Silk Road since Han Emperor Liu Che set up an administrative area there in BC 111.

On the western end of the Hexi Corridor, the city borders Gansu and Qinghai provinces and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region with an oasis area of 1,400 square kilometers and an altitude of 1,139 meters. It is a major production base for cotton, melon and other fruits in China due to its fertile soil, good sunlight and irrigation conditions.

Aside from natural views, such as the magnificent yardang landforms, deserts, springs and mountains, Dunhuang is a cradle for cultural heritage in Chinese history. The city has a total of 241 historical relics including Yumen pass and Yangguan pass, two important roads connecting Central Asia and China in ancient times, and the Buddhist Mogao Grottoes, which were carved some 1650 years ago.

UNESCO listed the Mogao Grottoes as a world cultural heritage site in 1987.

With a length of 1,600 meters, the grottoes include 492 caves and 45,000-square-meter of frescoes, showing life and art dating back to the Northern Wei (AD 386-534) and the Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties. Dunhuang is now a name card for Gansu to show its enigma to the outside world. The city aims to be one of the top cultural tourism destinations in China.

*News and Picture from China Daily: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/gansu/2016-09/30/content_26950045.htm. September, 2016.