China will open its first movie museum in 2005, a place to celebrate the centenary year for China's movie history, according to sources with the Beijing Architecture Institute.

The project has been approved by the State Development Planning Commission, the Beijing Evening News reported.

In 1958, the then Premier Zhou Enlai proposed such a museum but the plan was delayed for economic reasons.

Work on building the museum, a center for movie culture, is expected to start at the end of this year in the eastern Chaoyang District of the capital city, where Beijing's movie and TV town is based.

(Xinhua News Agency May 22, 2002)