With an approval of State Council of the P.R. China, China Shanghai International Arts Festival is the state-level International Arts Festival, hosted by the Ministry of Culture and organized by Shanghai Municipal People's Government. Since 1999, it has been proudly held in Shanghai from Oct.18th to Nov.18th.

　　The objective of China Shanghai International Arts Festival is to present the best in world culture, promote Chinese ethical arts, enhance Sino-Foreign cultural exchange and improve the cultural market.

　　In order to raise the awareness and advance the international status of our festival around the world, we proposed having a Guest Nation for each festival who would co-organize the Culture Week of the festival. Since the fourth China Shanghai International Arts Festival, we have successfully organized "Austrian Culture Week", "Russian Culture Week" and "French Culture in Shanghai" in the past few years.

　　Our festival is not only a grand event for artists but also a festival for ordinary people. Public Culture Activities facilitate our festival to expend the indoor stages and theatres to outdoor squares, parks, streets, communities, schools and enterprises, and provide our people with venues to display their talents. The "caravan parade" in the first festival to "outdoor celebration", from domestic and foreign artists into the community to "Daily performances" by celebrities and ordinary people, from residence performing competition to "Chang Jiang Delta Region" folk song competition. No wonder it can be an attractive scene during the festival with the wide participation of the people.

　　China Shanghai International Arts Festival undoubtedly will become a grand gathering for foreign and domestic art exchanges, a carnival for people, a vehicle for artistic innovation, a bridge for cultural exchange, a stage for training talents, the significant window through which we demonstrate the brand new image followed by openness reform. China Shanghai International Arts Festival makes a positive contribution to push forward socialist ethical progress, to promote metropolitan cultural status, and to accomplish the objective to establish Shanghai as an International Cultural Exchanges centre.