These specialized museums, intended to introduce the industries to the public, are expected to become tourist attractions in coming years, the committee said.

The Shanghai Museum of Public Security, the first of its kind in China, has attracted more than 300,000 tourists from outside the city since its founding in September 1999, committee statistics show. Other established industrial museums in Shanghai include the Shanghai Banking Museum and the China Dairy Industry Museum.

At present, Shanghai has 64 museums of various kinds. Shanghai Museum, the city's largest, receives around 1 million visitors per year, according to the Shanghai Municipal Administrative Committee of Cultural Relics.

Mr Zhou, an official of the Museum Administration Department under the committee, said most museums in Shanghai, whether financed by enterprises, governmental departments or individuals, are non-profits, the same as in many other cities around the country.

Quite a few museums in Shanghai, however, have not yet opened to the public due to a lack of operating funds.

The city's tourism and cultural relics protection authorities are encouraging museums around the city, especially the specialized ones, to commercialize their operations and further open up to the public in tandem with the development of the city's tourism industry, said Zhou.

In addition, sources with the Shanghai Development Strategy Research Institute said that the city, if it succeeds in its bid to host Expo 2010, will build a mammoth exhibition hall. The 240,000-square-metre hall would become the largest of its kind in China.

Shanghai, which currently has 10,000 square meters of exhibition space, is taking steps to become an international exhibition center.

The experts also predicted that Shanghai will witness a rapid growth of tourism revenues in the following years along with its booming exhibition industry.

(China Daily August 7, 2002)