| SINGAPORE:
The Asia Television Forum, Asia Film Market & Conference and the Asia Animation
Conference got off to a flying start this morning in Singapore with the Singapore
information, communication and arts minister Dr Lee Boon Yang announcing that
participation had grown 25 per cent this year.  Dr
Lee stated that the markets had attracted 80 new seller companies, and 50 new
buyer companies. The total number of sellers at the market has grown to 250 and
buyer countries represented from 25 to 29 countries, revealed Dr Lee.
Among
the countries which have shown sharp increases include: Greece, Jordan, Kazakhstan,
Lithuania, Qatar and Ukraine. The companies attending the market for the first
time include: Mosfilm Cinema Concern, Kazakh Cinema Distribution, and Russico.
All the major four Korean broadcasters including Educational Broadcasting System,
Korea Broadcasting System, Munhwa Broadcasting Corp, and Seoul Broadcasting System
have made it a point to attend for the first time. The minister added that
Singapore was working hard to emerge as a post production service providing hub
to Hollywood and other countries wanting to dub or subtitle and distribute to
Asia. He pointed out that a beginning had been made and that Singapore has a long
way to go but the effort will continue in the form of financing funds from the
Media Development Authority, and other government institutions. "Media is
one of our core focus areas," he said. He also announced that Oak3
Films will be coproducing a telemovie for German broadcaster ARD which will be
distributed by Beta Films globally. Another Singapore company Sitting in Pictures
is developing a nine part series with Fremantle International Distribution. Dr
Boon Yang also said that the MDA has collaborated with Singapore talent management
and executive production company RGM Holdings to set up a loan guarantee facility.
The loan facility will be used to partially finance at least six international
films worth Singapore $80 million over the next two years. His most important announcement
was that Singapore's media industry secured coproduction deals worth $50 million
at Mipcom 2006 Additionally, he said that the his ministry had identified
interactive and digital media sector as a key engine of growth and that a fund
of upto S$ 500 million had been kept aside to catalyse the same. Among
the companies which are exhibiting at ATF and the AFM include: Sony Entertainment
Television, Sahara One, Zee TV, Eros Multimedia, UFO Movies, Indian Television
Dot Com, to name a few. The highlight from the Indian perspective is the
Indian animation conference which is to be chaired by Ashish Kulkarni with participation
from Munjal Shroff, P Jayakumar, Rajesh Turakhia, Sudhish Rambothia. SET CEO Kunal
Dasgupta is slated to give the welcome address and function as the co-chair. | 
