BEIJING, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's cultural industry reported improving revenue last year as the COVID-19 epidemic was largely subdued and the country's economy gradually restored its strength, official data shows.

Exhibitors show paper cutting at the Suzhou Creative & Design Cultural Industry Expo in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, July 31, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)

The combined revenues of companies in the sector amounted to 9.85 trillion yuan (about 1.53 trillion US dollars) in 2020, up 2.2 percent year on year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The figure reversed the 0.6 percent drop in the January-September period, bouncing back into positive territory, the NBS noted.

Among the cultural industry's sub-sectors, the revenues of news information services and creative design services logged double-digit growth in 2020, up 18 percent and 11.1 percent respectively from a year ago.

Emerging business models integrating the internet with cultural businesses saw revenues surge 22.1 percent year on year, up 0.2 percentage points from the first three quarters of 2020, said the NBS.