A scene from costume drama New Life Begins, which was shot in Hengdian on Feb 7. Around one fourth of Chinese movies, one third of Chinese TV series, and two thirds of Chinese costume dramas are shot in Hengdian every year. [Photo/zj.zjol.com.cn]

Xu Yongan, chairman and president of Hengdian Group, was the only entrepreneur among the five keynote speech makers at the Zhejiang provincial government's first conference on the Chinese Lunar New Year, which was held in the provincial capital of Hangzhou on Feb 7 and included discussion on the construction of a demonstration zone for common prosperity in the province.

The Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, China's Cabinet, jointly published a guideline in June 2021 encouraging Zhejiang to take the lead in building a demonstration zone to help promote common prosperity nationwide.

According to Xu, Hengdian Group, which runs Hengdian World Studios - the world's largest film and TV drama shooting base, has helped realized common prosperity in Hengdian town, Dongyang, Zhejiang province, where the studios are based.

Xu said that the company currently employs 58,000 people and offers an average annual pay of 90,000 yuan ($14,148). He added that many of the employees used to be rural residents with meager incomes.

Moreover, Hengdian World Studios provides a source of income for more than 1,000 small and micro-sized businesses in the service sector. Hengdian town is home to 1,500 hotels offering 28,700 beds. Around 56 percent of the town's employed population, 75,000 people, are working in tertiary industry that is largely reliant on the regular inflows of movie crews and tourists from across the country.

The company has even invested heavily in local infrastructure and public services that benefit the general public. Due to the investment, Hengdian became the first Chinese town to have a general aviation airport in 2018, and an expansion project for the airport got underway in January this year. In addition, the company has established five schools, two hospitals, and a number of museums and parks in the town.

Per capita annual income for Hengdian residents hit 70,000 yuan in 2020, while the town's urban-rural resident income ratio was just 1.34- lower than the national figure of 2.64 and the provincial figure of 1.96 in the same year.

Hengdian Group traces its origin to a rundown State-owned silk reeling mill that Xu Yongan's father Xu Wenrong acquired in 1975. It has now become a privately-owned conglomerate that controls six listed corporations.

Visitors watch performances at the Guangzhou and Hong Kong streets re-created in film sets at Hengdian World Studios on July 15, 2021. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/chinadaily.com.cn]