Bilibili executives attend a ceremony on March 29 in Shanghai to celebrate the video firm's secondary listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The culture and creativity industry of East China's commercial powerhouse – Shanghai city – is currently on a roll and last year it saw steady development, with total output worth 2.04 trillion yuan ($310 billion).

The stars of the sector were internet and related services and software and information technology services, which grew by 18 and 12.5 percent, respectively. The new online economy has reportedly become the development engine of Shanghai's cultural and creative industry.

Although revenue in some sectors of Shanghai's culture and creativity industry fell in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the digital-related sectors still enjoyed strong growth momentum.

In the online culture industry sector, mobile games, online audio-visuals, digital reading and other new business areas achieved significant growth.

Last year, total sales of Shanghai's game industry hit 120.6 billion yuan, for year-on-year growth of 50 percent, while revenue from online literature surged to 11.5 billion yuan, up 37.7 percent.

Top internet companies – including Meituan Dianping, Ximalaya FM, Xiaohongshu, or Little Red Book and Bilibili – developed rapidly, driving the total output value of internet life service platforms to 143.59 billion yuan.

According to officials, Shanghai will speed up its efforts to attract even more resources for the new online economy and establish two new online economy ecological parks.

The city will also accelerate its 5G network roll-out in the current year, with 8,000 5G outdoor base stations set to be installed.