REF: Loi, N. T.; Hoa, T. T. V.; Hoa, N. Q.; Hoa, H. V. (2019). “A study on relationship between cultural industry and economic growth in Vietnam”. Management Science Letters 9. pp. 787-794. 

DOI: 10.5267/j.msl.2019.3.009

The term “cultural industry” applies to those industries that combine the creation, production and marketing of content that is by nature cultural and intangible (UNESCO, 2006). Content is protected by intellectual property rights and can take the form of goods and services. Culture influences economic growth, most of the studies have employed econometrics models such as OLS to test the relationship.In the context of Vietnam, the relationship between culture development and economic growth is a hot topic since it has been mentioned in the documents of Vietnamese government. This research attempts to investigate the relationship between cultural and economic growth by using the input – output analysis for Vietnam in both direct effect (impact of cultural industries’ demand on GDP growth) and indirect effect (impact of cultural industries on economic growth through other sectors in the economy). This study employs the Vietnam input - output tables of 2012 and 2016. The 2012 and 2016 input-output tables were issued by Vietnam General Statistics Office and the two input – output tables have the same number of categories of activities (164 industries in total).

Main findings

Vietnam has a diverse, rich and unique culture represented by traditional culture and contemporary cultural values are great potential for facilitating the development of cultural industries. In addition, thanks to the right policy of economic and cultural development, in recent years, especially after the policy of socialization of cultural activities, different economic sectors have been involved for the development of various fields of cultural industries.

The scale of the cultural sector in Vietnam has nearly doubled in size over the four- year time period 2012 – 2016, and more than four times for ten years from 2007 – 2016. However, the sector has only marginally increased its share of total GDP as the economy as a whole has experienced strong growth over the period in question (the share of cultural industry’s value added to GDP is 1.25% and 1.51% for the year 2012, 2016 respectively). 

Although the value of top activities is small, most of them are creative activities which are considered as the modern feature of culture industries. However, the other activities which exploit traditional cultural values are very small in both value and share of GDP. 

This shows that, in practice, the cultural industries in Vietnam are still under-developed with potential and it is still less developed than other countries in the region with similar backgrounds such as China, Korea. In the world, Vietnam's cultural industries are at an early stage of development.

Recommendations

Consumption of cultural industry contributes to economic growth cannot be ignored and the culture’s role in promoting the development of other industries is obvious. Therefore, to stimulate economic growth in Vietnam, we need to have some policies to promote the development of the cultural industry as below: 

(i) It is necessary to change the perception that the cultural sector was a non-manufacturing industry and the cultural market has problems. The market has an indispensable link to the cultural industry. For developing the cultural industry as an economic sector, there are many differences with the development of culture during the war. Businesses and entrepreneurs play an important role in this industry. 

(ii) It is a copyright issue. Cultural industry is an economic sector, cultural firms operating under the process of producing, exploiting, distributing and consuming cultural values should be protected by the Intellectual Property Law and Copyright Law. Propaganda and dissemination of legal education, raising awareness of the enforcement of copyright laws and related rights in the whole society is one of the most important tasks of conservation of copyright and related rights.