– This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on October 18, Tuesday.
Welcome to CNBC Business Daily, I'm Qian Chen.
Wang Jianlin, China's richest man and chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group, unveiled a production plan during a landmark visit to Los Angeles on Monday, in an effort to lure Hollywood movie shoots to Qingdao, where his conglomerate is building the world's largest filmmaking facility in China.
Billed as an effort to "bridge the entertainment capitals of the world," the program will provide a 40 percent production rebate on certain spending in Qingdao.
The funding of the generous incentive will be split between the Qingdao regional governments and Wanda.
Rebates and production incentives are common in the global movie industry, for local governments to attract the business and promotional benefits of film and TV production.
But Wanda's 40 percent subsidy is easily among the world's most generous, and could catapult China to the front ranks of the global chase to secure big-budget productions.
For example, the rebate policy in Louisiana, among the most generous in the U.S., is 30 percent. In Asia, Malaysia's rebate of 30 percent had been among the most lucrative.
Incentives of this scale also tend to be financed by regional governments; no private enterprise has attempted to jointly bankroll a major incentive itself.
[CHRISTOPHER VOLLMER, PwC's Strategy& Global Advisory Leader for Entertainment & Media] "I think all this is happening in a landscape where the US Hollywood studios being in China for 2 reasons. They need China for growth, because growth is slowing in the US and Europe, they also need China for new sources of financing. So I think any of these developements, any acquisations happening over the last several months only reflect current dynamics of Hollywood where they are looking to grow their business."
Another move came from Alibaba earlier this month.
Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners and Alibaba Pictures Group Ltd., the film studio unit of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., said earlier this month that they would co-produce and finance films for global and Chinese audiences.
They will also collaborate on the marketing, distribution and merchandising of Amblin Partner films in China, the companies said in a joint statement.
Under the terms of their partnership, Alibaba Pictures will also acquire a minority stake in Amblin Partners, which is chaired by Spielberg, the award-winning U.S. movie director and producer.
Meanwhile, these aggressive moves have raised some political concerns back in the US as well.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has agreed to a request by 16 bipartisan members of Congress to review the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which is supervised by the Treasury Department and reviews national security implications from foreign investments.
CNBC Qian Chen, reporting from Singapore.