After several years of accelerated development, cultural industries are poised to become a major driver of the economy in Xiamen, East China's Fujian province, local officials said.

Official statistics show that the added value of the city's cultural industries reached more than 18 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) in 2011, a 45.1 percent surge year-on-year, accounting for 7.1 percent of the city's GDP.

The figure hit 8.95 billion yuan in the first half of 2012, a 26.2 percent rise compared to the same period last year, with the number of employees in these sectors totaling 143,200.