By Min Lee, Entertainment Writer

HONG KONG (AP) --

Hollywood’s top lobbyist said Tuesday the American industry will increasingly work with the growing Chinese private film sector to pressure Beijing to loosen its movie quotas and better combat piracy. The top American studios want to show more films in the booming Chinese market, but have been frustrated by Beijing’s annual quota of 20 blockbusters on a revenue-sharing basis. Chinese films accounted for more than 60 percent of the domestic box office revenues of 4.3 billion Chinese yuan ($630 million) in 2008. “I do not think there has been enormous progress made on that issue,” Motion Picture Association of America Chairman and Chief Executive Dan Glickman told The Associated Press in an interview in Hong Kong after attending the Shanghai International Film Festival. He said he expects to see more Chinese-Hollywood co-productions, which are exempt from the import quota. Glickman said the Hollywood trade group will increasingly work with private filmmakers in China, who have better connections with government officials and have a stake in intellectual property protection and more product for the growing number of movie theaters. China had about 4,100 screens by the end of 2008, a 16 percent increase from the year before. “I think ultimately working in that direction will be as or more effective than just working with the government because I think … there’s got to be more internal Chinese pressure on the government rather than just American and foreign pressure,” Glickman said. “If it’s just us pushing the Chinese government alone, it’s probably not going to get a lot of progress. We need to get much more Chinese engagement in the issue,” he said. The former Clinton administration agriculture secretary and former Democratic congressman said China has made progress on curbing piracy — although he came across a pirated DVD store in Shanghai that carried thousands of titles. Glickman said despite the lack of progress on access to the Chinese market, he does not expect Hollywood studios to shift resources to another major developing market — India. “I think there were some who believed that we were putting an enormous amount of effort here and not getting a lot of results in the process,” he said. “But notwithstanding that, they recognize this is the biggest potential market in the world. So I think they’re going to continue to work to get their product into the country.” Glickman said the Obama administration is well-versed on Hollywood’s interests in China, noting that Vice President Joe Biden was chairman of the congressional anti-piracy caucus when he was a U.S. senator. But he said he understood such issues may have to give way to more pressing matters, like North Korea.

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