GUANGZHOU: Local authorities are planning to spend up to 180 million yuan ($24.9 million) a year over the next four years to aid the development of the comics and animation industry, officials have said.

"There is a promising market for the comics and animation industry as the city has introduced a series of preferential policies to support and develop the industry," Fan Xu, director of the Guangzhou press, publication, and radio and television (copyright) bureau, said earlier this week.

Guangzhou is home to more than 120 comics and animation companies, which generate combined annual revenues of more than 10 billion yuan, about a fifth of the nation's total, Fan said.