Creative industries to drive economic growth

The creative industries are predicted to become “a major, high growth contributor to the UK economy over the next five years”, according to figures released by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA). Its report, ‘Demanding Growth: Why the UK needs an industrial strategy based on growth and innovation’, urges the UK Government to “move away from corrective intervention to creative intervention” in new growth areas, which include the creative industries alongside the green economy and twenty-first century healthcare (in particular “biotechnology and services for an ageing society”). Its analysis of figures from the Government and other sources shows that the creative industries are set to grow on average by 4%, more than double the rate of the rest of the economy. By 2013, the number of creative businesses is likely to rise from 157,500 to 180,142, with employment levels of 1.3 million, outstripping the financial sector. In the same year the sector is expected to contribute as much as £85bn to UK value added, up from £57bn. Jonathan Kestenbaum, Chief Executive of NESTA, has called for “a targeted, sector-led package of… around £12bn over five years”, which would include £8bn in support for the creative industries, of which major components could be a £5.3bn fibre-optic broadband initiative and £700m support for specific industries. The report also shows that although in the current economic environment, gross value added in the sector is likely to drop by as much as 6% this year, stronger than average growth is expected from 2010. The figures are based on the DCMS definition of the creative industries, comprising 14 sectors such as advertising, software, computer games and electronic publishing. No breakdown of figures relating specifically to the arts sector is available.