Beijing - Artprice's Chairman, thierry Ehrmann, and its senior executives have just returned from several days of intense work at Artron's headquarters in Beijing where discussions focused on accelerating and implementing, as quickly as possible, all the agreed strategic and commercial initiatives that will inevitably generate very positive results in terms of turnover and the expansion of Artprice's client base... not to mention shareholder value.

Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie gave the Artprice team an exceptionally respectful, warm and loyal welcome and introduced Artprice to China's top-level institutional leaders, the country's principal Art Market players and all of Artron's 3,500 employees.

These face-to-face introductions are an essential step in Artprice's bid to fructify the enormous potential of the Chinese market in a fast and optimal manner.

In 2018, China accounted for 45% of global online transactions, generating 12 times more online transactions than the United States. China has a huge advantage over the West because it is building its market economy directly on the Internet (Source GEAB / LEAP 2020).

Speaking in front of his senior executives and top management, Mr. Wan Jie – at the head of his Artron empire and probably the most powerful player in China's Art Market – reiterated his unfailing personal friendship and loyalty vis-à-vis Artprice's founder-Chairman, thierry Ehrmann.

This fact deserves emphasis as Chinese custom usually prohibits such ‘departures' from accepted business protocol.

As China has become the global Art Market's leading marketplace over the past decade – Artprice had been the first to report it in 2009 –, it naturally represents a fascinating new market for Artprice.

China has grand ambitions:

As the French language business weekly Challenges headlined last week: “China, the giant that wants to dominate the World”. China is still accelerating with its “Made in China 2025” plan and its “New Silk Roads”.

As a global company, Artprice made a point to successfully enter the Chinese market, now the last great ‘eldorado' for any group whose market is global.

According to Artprice's founding Chairman, thierry Ehrmann, “I appreciated the emergence of China's global power, its insatiable appetite and its desire for leadership a long time ago! Over the past nine years, Artprice has translated hundreds of millions of data from its proprietary databases into Mandarin. However, observant visitors to our famous head offices (L'Organe Museum of Contemporary Art at the “Abode of Chaos” [dixit The New York Times]) over the past 30 years will have noticed thousands of artworks – including my own sculptures and paintings – directly or indirectly referring to the ancient culture and history of China.”

“Unlike many, I am not surprised to see China gradually becoming the world's leading economic power. Artprice has decided to enter the Chinese market through the front door with a humility that has clearly been lacking in many Western listed companies. Any other strategy would have been a fatal mistake. I therefore wish to reiterate my thanks to Wan Jie, Artron's Chairman, and all his colleagues for making this open and proper strategy possible after 9 years of close collaboration!”

Thanks to Artron's expert advice, Artprice fully complies with the specifications of China's “Great Electronic Wall” and its terms and conditions: Law CL97 (1997) as well as its “Golden Shield” protocol (1998).

In order to comply with law CL97, Artprice spent two years rewriting all its databank code in order to eliminate all US and European corporate source code containing cookies, tags, metadata, backdoor elements (amongst other elements).

Since Monday morning, Artprice is one of the very few Western companies to possess a WeChat profile reserved for companies operating under Chinese law. WeChat is used by more than 1.8 billion Chinese Internet users around the world.

The statistics concerning China are eye-watering: a population of over 1.4 billion people, 5 times that of the United States, a GDP growth of 6.5% this year and, regarding specifically Artprice, a colossal art market with a massive pool of living artists (1 million in China versus 120,000 for the USA and Europe combined) and an almost infinite number of artworks. China's art market is animated by tens of millions of art buyers, professionals and collectors, many of whom are Artron customers and therefore, going forward, potential customers for Artprice.

The title of Artron's press release: “Artron and Artprice team up to create the art ‘silk road'”, (the ‘silk road' notion is massively used by the Chinese State) makes perfect sense. The New Silk Road is part of China's soft power strategy (OBOR for One Belt, One Road) to conquer the world economically.

China had initiated the project. According to the IMF, the World Bank and the CIA World Factbook, China is the world's leading economic power in terms of GDP-PPP in 2017. According to CNN, this project encompasses 68 countries representing 4.8 billion people and 62% of global GDP.

Artron is a very powerful company and, for those interested in Art or the Art Market, Artron is completely unavoidable in China. Artron is not only the world's leading publisher of Fine Art books and auction catalogues (with more than 400 million books/catalogues printed); it is also a major scientific laboratory – with premises in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen – and a technical and scientific knowledge base that easily rivals that of Silicon Valley.

Its scanning processes in virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality have reached the very highest level of global sophistication and the company's scientific and cultural innovation has been rewarded with more than 800 prizes and awards for excellence.

Artron.Net is the most respected brand in the Chinese art world. It has more than 3 million professional members in the arts sector and an average of 15 million daily visits, making it the world's leading art website. It is the first choice for art professionals, investors / collectors and art lovers. Founded in 1993, the Artron Art Group is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

The involvement of Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie in Art in China is completely uncontested. Mr. Wan Jie is a ‘protector' of Beijing's famous 798 Factory which enjoys global visibility and was visited by Artprice staff.

He is also Vice-Chairman and Founder of the Institute of the famous Forbidden City, where he and thierry Ehrmann visited government offices that are closed to the public during the recent trip to Beijing.

The was also an opportunity for Artprice's Chairman thierry Ehrmann to see first-hand Mr. Wan Jie's involvement and support for the protection and diffusion of ancient masterpieces of Chinese art in the Imperial Granaries. These superb works have been “returned to the people” thanks to Artron's scientific breakthroughs and ultra high-speed Internet which allows these masterpieces of humanity to be contemplated in a virtual reality context, with the support of the Chinese State.

During the trip, the Artprice team met some of China's world-renowned artists including Fang Lijun (born in 1963) ranked 623/700,000 in 2018 and Zhang Xiaogang (born in 1958) ranked 121/700,000 artists in 2018 in Artprice's global ranking.

Artprice's press agency, ArtMarketInsight, together with Artron's editors, have decided to post around thirty daily dispatches in both Chinese and English aimed at combining information about the Chinese art market with information about the Western art market.

Our various meetings and visits in Beijing left no doubt in our minds as to the power of China, the extraordinary wealth and depth of its history (over 4,000 years), and the country's incredible advance over the West in terms of technology… a vision and an understanding of China that completely disqualifies the ignorant visions of the Chinese Empire that can still be found in the West to this day.

A geo-cultural analysis is not interested in the percentage of GDP spent on arms, but rather in the depth of the countries' respective histories and the relative strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist civilizations.

Among its numerous manifestations, China's ‘soft power' is also focused on the Art Market. In this context, Artron's alliance with Artprice is part of Xi Jinping's “BRI” (belt and road initiative) launched in 2013 (aka the “Silk Road” in Europe). According to CNN, this project encompasses 68 countries representing 4.8 billion people and 62% of global GDP with an investment of close to $8 trillion.

It is therefore a great honour for Artprice to have been chosen by Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie. Artron appreciates the work conducted by Artprice and has validated its place as World Leader in Art Market Information. That is why Artprice subscriptions will be distributed in China, with a huge potential for new customers. Artprice's data will contribute to the fluidity of the Chinese and, more broadly, the Asian Art Market, in a context where ‘Greater Asia' will account for 70% of the global Art Market by 2019.

According to Artron, Artprice's econometric expertise associated with Artron's proprietary data will not only provide an extraordinary boost to the fluidity of China's Art Market (throughout its numerous provinces and autonomous regions), it will also greatly enhance and facilitate the work conducted by the country's tax, administrative and customs authorities.

According to Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie, the only legitimate way to approach this colossal mission was to team up with a recognised and globally authoritative third-party certifier like Artprice, as World Leader in Art Market Information.

Never mentioned in the press or identified by economists or sociologists, this massive new market that Artprice is entering is typical of the kind of domestic market that only a central player in China's Art Market could have been aware of.

China's Provincial-level administrative divisions are the highest level administrative divisions in the People's Republic of China. There are 34 such divisions, classified as 23 provinces, 4 municipalities, 5 autonomous regions, and 2 Special Administrative Regions.

Artprice subscriptions sold exclusively by Artron in China will therefore reach directly into the heart of the need identified by Artron within China's domestic market. Similarly, Artprice will be accessible via Artron.Net's home page and all the Chinese social networks where Artron is omnipresent.

Artron's Chairman Mr. Wan Jie has already introduced Artprice to some very promising commercial contacts including the Chairman of China Guardian, China's first publicly-traded Chinese auction house. China Guardian needs high-end Artprice subscriptions for its VIP customers as well as Artprice's monthly analyses for its internal operations.

Thanks to Artron's unique technology in the field of scanning parchments, manuscripts and collection catalogues from the previous century, Artprice will finally be able to offer all its customers extremely high value-added data such as the hundreds of thousands of handwritten notes by Hippolyte Mireur and the various pre-17th century documentary collections that Artprice owns, which are too fragile to be scanned using Western scanning devices.

With this major breakthrough, Artprice will further strengthen its position as World Leader in Art Market Information.

In the context of this extraordinary alliance with Artron and the massive potential for new customers in China, Artprice is anticipating a major boost to its 2019 sales and profits.

For the launch and marketing of its services and databases in China, Artprice will benefit from all of Artron's logistical resources in terms of communication, via the Internet, as well as the physical world, thanks to its power, its reputation and its innumerable electronic and/or commercial networks throughout Greater Asia.

In this context, Artprice, with the assistance of Artron, has just translated 125 million data into the Chinese currency, the Renmimbi (RMB). Naturally the primary objective of this translation process is to facilitate the purchase of its data by its new Chinese clientele, presented by Artron. This captive clientele is accustomed to using Alipay and WeChat (1.8 billion users), two Chinese instant payment platforms (QR Code in kiosk mode debiting the Chinese customer on behalf of Artprice) that are mandatory for Chinese buyers.

Numerous synergies have already been identified from our joint working sessions and the merging of Artprice/Artron teams with the similar functions. Given the extent of strategic, financial and economic involvement with Artron, Artprice has decided to appoint a Chief Executive responsible for its Chinese and Greater Asia operations, who will reside in Beijing and work closely with Artron's teams.

The objective of this strategy is to accelerate the numerous initiatives recently engendered by Artprice's and Artron's contractual and promissory agreements. This informed decision has been carefully deliberated and enjoys unanimous support within the Group.

This appointment will, notably, make it easier to coordinate Artron's and Artprice's joint initiatives.

Artron's goals are both transparent and unambiguous:

In Mr. Wan Jie's own words: “The founders and Chairmen of the two companies, thierry Ehrmann and myself – with our enthusiasm for art – will create a Silk Road linking the Chinese and Western art markets on the principle of mutual respect and cooperation”.

“The two parties will build a global, diversified and professional exchange platform in the art market that will ultimately promote the sustainable development of the global art market.”

As this platform develops, Artprice's Standardised Marketplace® will host millions of works by Chinese artists, provided by Artron, generating a massive increase in the number of artworks available online.

Artmarket.com, .net and .org therefore represent a decisive advantage in our quest to capture and drive the Global Art Market's development on the Internet.

According to a bailiff's report established by the Estelle PONS - Sarah MERGUI licensed court bailiff partnership in Lyon, Artmarket.com is the top result out of 1.82 billion results on Google.com (all languages combined) and therefore represents the best possible vector for Artprice to promote the works of 1 million Chinese artists and their tens of millions of works (already hosted by Artron) in the Western art market.

In view of the radical change in scope anticipated, Artprice is naturally moving towards an IPO of its subsidiary artmarket.com, its Standardized Marketplace®, on a Chinese stock exchange (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen ...) and not on an Anglo-Saxon exchange as originally planned.

According to thierry Ehrmann, “In 2019 Artprice will begin a new chapter alongside Artron that will trigger tremendous value for the global Art Market and our loyal shareholders. I am particularly pleased that my long-term strategy based on China's rapid economic emergence will generate such positive results.”

“Today I am 56; when I first visited China I was 25. Since then I have spent 30 years patiently studying the Middle Kingdom. Beyond this satisfaction, I have had the immense pleasure of knowing Mr. Wan Jie, a founding Chairman with whom I share the same vision regarding the democratization and promotion of art in the world. In short… Artprice's long march is about to reach its objectives for its shareholders and for the global art market.”

Artron will soon be publishing a documentary-report explaining all the meetings, discussions and agreements between the Artprice and Artron teams in Beijing. It will allow Western viewers to see images of Artron's ultra-sophisticated scientific processes and appreciate the economic power of Artron in Greater Asia.

About the Artron Group:

“Artron Art Group (Artron), a comprehensive cultural industrial group founded in 1993, is committed to inheriting, enhancing and spreading art value. Based on abundant art data, Artron provides art industry and art fans with professional service and experience of quality products by integrated application of IT, advanced digital science and innovative crafts and materials. Having produced more than 60,000 books and auction catalogues, Artron is the world's largest art book printer with a total print volume of 300 million a year. It has more than 3 million professional members in the arts sector and an average of 15 million daily visits, making it the world's leading art website. Founded in 1993, the Artron Art Group is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It is the first choice for art professionals, investors,
collectors and art fans in general wishing to discover and/or participate in the art world or the art market. Founded in 1993, Artron Art Group is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.”

According to the Artron Group and its founder-Chairman Mr. Wan Jie “After 7 years of cooperation, Artron and Artprice have optimised their cooperation regarding the Chinese and Western art markets. The founders and Chairmen of both companies, Mr. Wan Jie and Mr. Thierry Ehrmann, with their enthusiasm for art, will create a Silk Road linking the Chinese and Western art markets on the principle of respect and mutual cooperation. The two groups will build a global, diversified and professional exchange platform in the Art Market, which will ultimately promote the sustainable development of the Global Art Market.

Artprice is the global leader in art price and art index databanks. It has over 30 million indices and auction results covering more than 700,000 artists. Artprice Images® gives unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world: a library of 126 million images or prints of artworks from the year 1700 to the present day, along with comments by Artprice's art historians.

12 Oct. 2018: Artprice and Artron have just created an “Art Media Mogul”:

Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with information from 6,300 auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow of art market trends for the world's principal news agencies and approximately 7,200 international press publications. For its 4,500,000 members, Artprice gives access to the world's leading Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art. Artprice is preparing its blockchain for the Art Market. It is BPI-labelled (scientific national French label)Artprice's Global Art Market Annual Report for 2017 published last March 2018: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2017