Interesting news out of Filmart in Hong Kong (h/t Hollywood Reporter):

Asian film industry executives and media policymakers from Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore and Macau will gather Monday to unveil a proposal to reform China’s strict film import and export rules and increase the outflow of Chinese cultural products to markets overseas.

The forum at the Hong Kong Filmart, which runs through Thursday, was organized by local outfit Salon Films, which is hosting a Chinese delegation headed by China Film Assn. chairman and China Film Foundation president Li Qiankuan and Shanghai Media Group president Li Ruigang and will include officials from China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

The forum will convene to discuss the creation in Shanghai’s Wai Gao Qiao free trade zone of a “special cultural administrative region” for the increased import and export of films, Salon chairman Fred Wang told The Hollywood Reporter.

Since China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2002, Beijing has capped at 20 the number of films allowed to be imported to China and screened theatrically on a revenue-sharing basis. On the flip side, China’s carefully monitored industry has produced only a handful of films over the years that have succeeded overseas on a big scale.

The proposed free trade zone in Shanghai’s Pudong district would be the result of an agreement signed in September by Salon and city government-backed Shanghai Oriental Huiwen International Cultural Services Trading Co.

“The Chinese government will be using Wai Gao Qiao as a testing ground for its cultural trade policies and strategic reform for import and export of films and other cultural products,” Wang said. “Salon is facilitating the policymaking with proposals such as a free market for imported motion pictures from the U.S. within the zone as well as an increase of exported Chinese films to the U.S.”

I don’t really have any more news on this so far. I do know a couple of people who attended the event, so maybe I will find out more later this week. At the outset, my feeling is that this discussion over cross-border issues should in no way be seen as a general plan to liberalize the importation regime.

Liberalization could happen any time, theoretically, but dramatic change seems unlikely this year given how sensitive the government is these days. With the bad economy, hordes of pissed-off unemployed folks, the historical anniversaries this year, etc., it’s not really a good time for adjusting quotas.

On the other hand, it’s a great time to help out domestic industries, and setting up new pilot programs to assist local firms in creative ventures, particularly when those include overseas distribution of Chinese IP, well, that’s all for the best.

For more on the business side of what’s being discussed at Filmart with respect to China, Variety and The Wall Street Journal have more.