Reporters learned from Culture Department of Sichuan Province on January 21st that the 1st China Tieling Lotus Lake Lantern Festival hosted by Zigong Zhongyi Lantern Lighting Co. Ltd. would be opened on February 1st. The locus lantern with the height of 30 meters and the diameter of 25 meters has broken world record. The number of light groups has accumulated more than 130 and there are also over 10 huge light groups with the total number of lights over 10,000, the largest lantern festival in the northeastern China area. During the Spring Festival period of 2015, lantern enterprises of Zigong are quite busy.

　　On the list of export orders of Zigong lantern enterprises, the nation names of Asia, Europe and America are full on the list, such as Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain, the United States, Germany. On the orders, Singapore is an old friend for lantern enterprises of Zigong as the producers of a huge auspicious beginning lantern engineering program. There are also new friends. Zigong Xinya Lantern Company hosted a lantern festival in Houston with the theme of Snow Islands. Besides, Xinya Company also won the authorization of SpongeBob, which has been the most popular cartoon image in America in decades, to mix with SpongeBob with Zigong lanterns and Harbin ice sculptures, attracting the attention of numerous American viewers. On February 28th, Xinya Lantern Company will also hold lantern festival in Tampa, America, for 3 months. During the festival, American local cultural elements will be displayed on the form of Zigong lanterns.

　　According to responsible person from Industrial Department of Zigong Culture Bureau, there are over 300 lantern companies in Zigong, of which more than 10 have established foreign branches. “Zigong lantern companies strive for new breakthroughs in transformation from merely selling lantern products to investment operation with the combination of local culture.”

　　The lantern products have accounted for over 80% of Zigong cultural products and foreign service trade volume of lantern products takes for over 10% among Zigong foreign trade volume. Among 2013-2014 National Cultural Export Major enterprises approved by Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Commerce and so on, Zigong lantern enterprises account for 36.7% of all the number of Sichuan, ranking first with Chengdu.