China’s province of Zhejiang has announced the launch of a metaverse association to encourage innovation and growth of the local industry.
The province’s administrators said the newly minted metaverse association would complement existing efforts to attract leading metaverse development and Web3 companies to the province. Chinese firms, including NetEase and a subsidiary of China Mobile, have formed the vanguard for the new association dubbed the Zhejiang Metaverse Industry Association.
Headquartered in the province’s capital of Hangzhou, the metaverse association kicked off operations with 91 local metaverse companies. The official announcement disclosed ambitious plans to increase the size of its members to 200 firms before the end of 2025.
The operations of the metaverse association will be supervised by the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology, with Chinese Academy of Engineering Professor Tan Jiangrong selected as the first president.
The launch drew attendance from metaverse industry executives, public officials, and academics from the region’s universities.
Tan disclosed the association’s plans to launch seven committees, four centers, and an expert think tank to grow the adoption rates of virtual worlds in the provinces. The seven committees will explore metaverse use cases in medicine, e-commerce, consumption, education, economy, community, and cultural tourism.
Apart from the primary task of probing for new use cases, the association says it will provide the government with suggestions to “formulate metaverse industry development plans” while collaborating with regulators for their enforcement.
“Through platform construction, the association will gather the wisdom and strength of the industry, link cooperation and exchanges between domestic and foreign enterprises, introduce domestic and foreign outstanding talents and enterprises,” the announcement read.
The creation of the metaverse association follows the unveiling of a plan by the province to achieve a thriving metaverse industry worth over $28 billion by 2025.
Heated race in China’s metaverse industry
Several Chinese cities have announced extensive investment plans in their local metaverse industry. Beijing has emerged as the leading hub for metaverse development in mainland China, unveiling a two-year plan to attract the leading industry firms to the city.
Other Chinese cities have toed the same path as Beijing, with Guangzhou, Hefei, and Nanjing splurging funds to invest in their metaverse industries. Nanjing took things up a notch by renaming a faculty in its university after the metaverse, following it up with a three-year plan to attract 200 metaverse service providers.
