On January 5, two events of China Post—the award ceremony of the creativity product design competition forthe Year of the Rat commemorating the 40^th anniversary of Chinese zodiac stamp issuanceand the launching of the "May 20· Rose" special stamp design competitionwere held simultaneously at the National Museum of China together with the first-issue ceremony of zodiac special stampsfor the Year of Gengzi (the Year of Gengzi refers to the year of 2020, also known as the Year of Rat by the Chinese zodiac).

Mr. Kang Ning, Vice President of China Post Group Corporation Limited (China Post Group Co., Ltd) and famous artist Mr. Han Meilin attended the ceremony to award prizes to winners of the creativity product design competition and to unveil the "May 20· Rose" special stamp design competitionto collect ideas for special stamps to be issued on May 20, a day celebrated by many Chinese young people as a lovers’ day.

At the award ceremony, Wang Zhiqi, General Manager of the Department of Postal Servicesof China Post Group Co., Ltd said that culture is in the veins of a nation, and it gives the people a sense of belonging. The inheritance and development of excellent traditional Chinese culture is an important project in developing a great socialist culture in China,enhancing China’s cultural soft power and realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.2020 marks the 40^thanniversary of the issuance of Chinese zodiac stamps by China Post.In order to better implement the national strategies, spread excellent traditional Chinese culture and actively promote the research and development of zodiac-related cultural and creative products, China National Philatelic Corporation held the "Forty Years of Chinese Zodiac Stamps" creativity product design competition for the first time.

This competition takes the zodiac creative cultural product design as the starting point, trying to extract the essence of the traditional Chinese culture from the zodiac stamps by means ofcreative design competition and guide the young designers to learn the spirit of Chinese aesthetics. The competition was officially launched on September 12, 2019. Since then, it has attracted widespread attention from all walks of life. A total of 3,209 validentries have been collected, including 2,326 entriesin cultural and creative design and 883 entries related to postal services.

A total of 2 first prizes, 5 second prizes, 7 third prizes and 13 honorable mention prizes were selected through online voting by the public judges and comprehensive scoring by the judging committee. The competition has also set up a special award to encourage those teachers from major art schools contributing to the activity promotion and student entry guidance. Six teachers from five universities including the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Beijing Institute of Technology won the award. Mr. Han Meilin, Chairman of the judging committee, commented on the winning entries one by one and made pertinent suggestions.

At the same time, another creative cultural event— China Post "May 20· Rose" Special Stamp Design Competition is launched. This competitionaims to further enhance the quality of postage stamps andpromote the opening of stamp design tothe public, thereby enrichingstamp design style, improving artistry, andendowingtraditional Chinese culturewith more vitality and dynamism.In the future, through the combination of strong resources and multi-party cooperation, China Post will accelerate the construction of philatelic cultural industry, promote thedevelopment of cultural and creative products, and continue to expand ways of transmission and carriers for postal culture.