Serving as an official forum under the China International Fair for Trade in Services, the 2026 Headquarters Economy Conference and the 6th Forum on Building Economy and High-Quality Urban Development was held in Beijing on September 11. Gang Hao, the Chairman of Jingdezhen Taoyi Culture Development Co., Ltd., delivered a keynote speech during the event.

Good afternoon, esteemed leaders and colleagues. I come from Taoxichuan in Jingdezhen, and I am deeply honored to be invited by the organizers to share the cultural and tourism practices we have implemented in Taoxichuan over the past decade and more, within a forum theme that fits our work perfectly. Let me ask how many of you here have visited Taoxichuan? Judging by the show of hands, it appears about 90% of the audience has not been there. I hope my presentation today will encourage you to visit us in the future.

Jingdezhen is actually a very small fifth-tier city. Although it appears in elementary school textbooks, many people have never had the chance to visit. The Jingdezhen of the past was something confined to books, but the Jingdezhen of today, I believe, has become a pure land that people yearn for in their lives. Taoxichuan is a cultural and creative district activated from a historically significant heritage site within this small city. My topic today is "From Industrial Ruins to a Haven for Youth." Over the past decade, we have implemented innovative practices that integrate cultural tourism with urban scenes, and this is what I would like to share with you today.

Since I believe many of you here are peers in the industry, I won't focus on describing what Taoxichuan has to offer as a destination. You can easily find that information everywhere online through videos, photos, and travel guides. Today, I want to discuss the lessons, insights, and reflections we have gained during Taoxichuan's development.

Let's first look back at the starting point of Taoxichuan. In 2012, it began as a single factory, the Universe Porcelain Factory. After its opening in 2017, with recognition from all sectors of society, the municipal party committee and government expanded the master plan for Taoxichuan to encompass seven factories, covering a large district of 1.5 square kilometers in the eastern part of Jingdezhen. By the end of this year, the completed area will total one million square meters, making it the largest single industrial renovation project in the country in terms of both density and scale. Reflecting on its history, the Universe Porcelain Factory was officially built in 1958, reached its industrial peak in 1959, underwent a critical period of restructuring, shutdown, and bankruptcy from 1994 to 2005, and officially began its transformation and upgrading as an industrial district in 2012. Taoxichuan officially opened its streets in 2016, marking its complete evolution.

Most discussions about Taoxichuan focus heavily on planning. The previous speakers have touched on topics like scene creation, architectural significance, and the development of cultural, creative, and historical districts, primarily focusing on how to restructure scenes and attract businesses. However, looking back at our ten years of operational experience, we realize that Taoxichuan's development has been guided by an overarching systematic planning logic. We believe that a cultural tourism district, creative district, or historical district with culture at its core must be led from start to finish by an overall plan grounded in cultural strategy and artistic aesthetics. Only then can a district sustain long-term growth potential.

Our methodology follows roughly six steps. The first step is cultural planning. We conduct in-depth fieldwork, studying both past and future production and lifestyle patterns, spanning from 300 years ago to 300 years ahead. This research forms the basis for a cultural plan, which then serves as the blueprint for the second step: spatial planning. In spatial planning, Taoxichuan has grown from an initial 100,000 square meters, expanding by roughly 100,000 to 150,000 square meters each year, to today's one million square meter plan, with the final goal of 1.6 million square meters. Spatial planning is not just about area and shape; it is fundamentally about considering the city's unique industrial characteristics, historical heritage, consumption patterns, and folk customs. These factors determine the scale of buildings, road widths, construction materials, colors, and those valuable forms of life and memories that should be preserved. These are the essential considerations we keep in mind during spatial planning. For the past decade, we have adhered to three principles in spatial planning: try our best not to tear down a single piece of paper, not to demolish a single wall, not to cut down a single tree, and not to destroy any ancient roads. This preservation of cultural context allows us to continue telling more stories.

The third step is population planning. Many people visiting Taoxichuan for the first time ask me about our business recruitment strategy. I tell them that we never considered recruitment as our primary task. From the very beginning, Taoxichuan sought to answer a critical question: who is this place ultimately being built for? What kind of people do we hope to keep, attract, and bring in? In building this city of scenes today, the most important element is determining the target population. Therefore, planning for the local population becomes a crucial part. In the past, we decided that Taoxichuan should be a place to retain young people for the city. What kind of young people? Young artists, designers, and artisans became our target demographic sample for the Taoxichuan district.

With this population plan in mind, the business format plan naturally followed. It was centered around these three types of young people, ensuring their production, lifestyle, and growth needs within Jingdezhen were met. Whether it's life support facilities, necessary elements for starting a business, or support for their development as enterprises, we matched our offerings accordingly. Our business formats truly grew organically. By 2019, we realized that renting out 90% of Taoxichuan's properties at Shanghai-level prices would still not allow us to break even. So, we had to incubate a full-chain brand ecosystem under the Taoxichuan name. Thus, our brand strategy was officially launched in 2019.

The final aspect is capital market planning. As the moderator mentioned, we are making our first attempt with a public REIT. We began focusing on capital market strategy as early as 2020. As everyone knows, it is extremely difficult for cultural tourism districts and historical districts to enter the capital market. We have overcome numerous hurdles and explored various possibilities, and reaching this point has not been easy. We are now at a critical juncture, and I know this is a topic of great interest to our industry peers.

Now, let me shift focus to what I call the "Taoxichuan Code." The reason Taoxichuan has maintained sufficient exposure, generated positive social influence, and achieved certain results in financial statements and industry impact over the years is our ecological unlocking code. We have consistently built this vibrant land around an industrial population. As I mentioned, we've evolved from industrial ruins to a youth haven. Our community operations have expanded from the initial young makers to currently five distinct communities. The first is the Young Makers community, our oldest, sustained over 11 years. It has grown from 55 people to the current 35,000, with numbers increasing daily. This community supports employment for approximately 140,000 to 150,000 people, laying a solid foundation for employment in Jingdezhen. When visitors step off the train and see so many young faces, it's the result of this project's effectiveness.

The second community is for young artisans. We believe that telling the story of Chinese traditional culture solely through porcelain is insufficient. So, in 2020, we started incubating a second group: artisans from all over the country, working in crafts beyond ceramics. Currently, we have gathered nearly 40,000 artisans in this category who have come to Jingdezhen to start businesses. The third community, which began in 2015, is crucial and is called the International Artist Residency Program, also known as the "Migratory Bird Plan." This program represents China, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, and serves as a vital platform for foreign cultural exchange. Over the past ten years, we have brought together nearly 6,600 top-tier ceramic artists from over 65 countries and 300 cities worldwide for residencies at Taoxichuan. Initially, these residencies seemed like a purely artistic endeavor. We saw it as an urban public art and cultural exchange project. However, as the number of participants grew, we realized that the art industry itself has become a core part of Taoxichuan. Today, 50% of Taoxichuan's space is intentionally allocated for these international artists, including exhibition halls, galleries, display areas, and studio spaces, with significant business development around this community. This is a key reason for Taoxichuan's uniqueness.

The fourth community comprises non-standard business owners. Currently, with the opening of Phase 3 of Taoxichuan, 1,500 such business owners have established themselves here. Taoxichuan's businesses are generally not recruited externally but incubated internally because of their unique and entrepreneurial nature. As a result, you'll find very few chain brands in Taoxichuan, aside from some specific catering chains. Most commercial forms are non-standard, showcasing a strong local character. This leads to the fifth community. This year, we recognized that the most crucial step in our innovative practice is embracing technology. The question is how a traditional cultural industry city or a handmade craft city can maintain its innovativeness quickly. At the beginning of this year, the municipal party committee and government challenged us with a new task: to build an OPC community. This is our fifth community. Taoxichuan is currently holding its first OPC startup competition, which is in its final evaluation stage today. On September 15th, the first group of about 300 OPC participants will join the community. Our community operations revolve around gathering people. Returning to the forum's theme of a "city of scenes", if people are the core, it's not just about creating beautiful scenes for visitors from everywhere to enjoy. More importantly, the core of a scene city lies in its local industrial population, the industrial population we aim to develop and incubate, and the young talent we retain here. This is one of the keys we have unlocked through community operations and ecological development.

The second key I want to share is this: once people gather, we must remember that as a company, to survive and develop, we must generate revenue. At least we need positive cash flow, and ideally, we create greater imagination and possibilities for the future, delivering core value through the group's complete business chain. Since 2019, we have incubated numerous brands. Beyond the Taoxichuan street itself, we have Taoxichuan Ceramics, Longzhu Pavilion, a national banquet porcelain brand from Jingdezhen, our own mineral water brand, Shangzhen craft beer, event brands like Chunqiu Daji and Yaoyuzuo, and an exhibition brand. We are also involved in education, training, and hotel management. Over the past decade, we have built a brand cluster of about 15 within Taoxichuan, and this number will only grow. This year, we are introducing beverage, tea, and apparel brands, with several new categories launching annually. This diversified approach is how we achieve over a billion RMB in annual revenue from our 400,000 square meter operation. People often ask me what a chairman does all day; I say I'm constantly opening stores and selling products.

I've talked about people and brands. As an operator and manager, one must always consider the macro perspective: how to build a complete supply chain loop, drive the value of our assets, and use the value generated on this land to uplift the entire city. This is what we have been diligently practicing and considering. Reflecting on our ten years of operations, I can summarize our transformation through several "districts." We started by renovating the old factory area into a commercial street, a spatial form. After several years of operation, we realized it had become an entrepreneurial community for these groups of people. Then, we understood it as a learning district, which extends beyond the physical street itself, requiring industry-education integration, urban-industry integration, and cross-boundary connections with external entities. Our journey over the past decade has been a process of transdisciplinary transformation and transition. In this first decade, we successfully established a single, closed-loop supply chain.

Taoxichuan's practice might seem like a talent introduction effort or an innovative response to national strategies. However, for our team and the group's requirements, AI is the next stage of our transformation. The Taoxichuan OPC competition and base differ significantly from other city OPCs. We aim to bring in professional AI institutions, talents, and enterprises. Our goal is to empower six key tracks: product design, cultural tourism performing arts, new retail, new media, cultural tourism experience, and digital technology. We want to equip professionals in each track with AI capabilities, teaching them to utilize AI to grow from an individual to a small enterprise, and from a small enterprise to a larger one. This is what makes our AI practice unique. Our approach involves doing what the city has always done: offering favorable policies and establishing a robust foundation for long-term incubation to support the development of people in this district.

Why do I emphasize AI? Because we are imagining what a handmade craft industry city should look like in the AI era over the next decade. Our vision for Taoxichuan is to become an ecological model with a dual-engine drive: AI plus handmade art. The first sample involves transitioning from scenic spots to cultural content, then to community co-creation, brand matrix, new retail networks, and smart data empowerment. The dual-engine linkage aims for continuous asset appreciation, including the spillover of community value, and asset appreciation across scenes, communities, brands, and digital assets. In our operations, we continuously manage the community, ensuring the space remains vibrant and lively. On the other hand, we must achieve sustained asset growth through multiple rounds of operation involving assets, resources, and users. This is the ongoing thought process in Taoxichuan's practice.

Ultimately, we see the bigger picture. Throughout this presentation, I have deliberately spoken less about ceramics and more about handmade art. We consider Jingdezhen and Taoxichuan to be the world's capital of handmade art. Our ambition is to build this city into a world-class hub for the handmade art ecosystem. This is the goal Taoxichuan is striving towards for the next decade. To conclude, many perceive Taoxichuan simply as a picturesque place for taking photos, with well-designed buildings and a magnet for young people. In reality, there's a deep, systematic underpinning to our work. Our decade of thinking encompasses six key principles: anchoring to the local industry, actively protecting heritage, empowering industry incubation, fostering multi-stakeholder collaboration, developing proprietary IP, and focusing on human needs. These are the six core pillars that have consistently guided Taoxichuan for the past ten years. It's not merely about hiring a good designer, planner, or business development talent. It's about a holistic plan, a determination to follow a single blueprint from beginning to end, and a commitment to a unified vision. I believe Taoxichuan's practice owes much to the strong support from the municipal party committee and government, as well as the care and support from experts, scholars, and people from all walks of life. This is why Taoxichuan exists in its current form, and it is not replicable. My presentation today is just an introduction, intended to spark discussion. I hope to have more opportunities to talk with all of you in the future, and I warmly welcome you to visit Taoxichuan in Jingdezhen. Thank you.