Chinese cultural heritage experts have suggested that a lottery should be issued to raise heritage protection funds, which has proved successful in Britain, Italy and other European countries.

Guo Zhan, Vice President of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), said here on Friday that the cultural heritage circle and related departments in China were very interested in the lottery.

At an international conference on heritage conservation in Shaoxing, east China's Zhejiang Province, Judith Cligman, from Britain's Heritage Lottery Fund, gave a lecture on her experience of the heritage lottery in Britain.

Established in 1994, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) funds heritage projects such as parks, museums and projects about language, dialect and cultural traditions, said Cligman.

Since 1994, more than US$5.8 billion has been granted to 16,700 heritage projects, which is the biggest investment ever made in British heritage, according to Cligman.

"Heritage has been made accessible to a wider audience and is enjoying mass appeal. More than 2 million people watched each BBC Restoration series and 3.7 million people voted which building would win HLF funding," said Cligman.

"If China can use the funds raised through a heritage lottery, it will help solve the financial shortage and save more endangered cultural heritage," Guo said.

At present, the funds for protecting China's cultural heritage come mainly from government investment and local tourism income.

Zhou Suning, an official from the preservation office of the Classical Gardens of Suzhou, a world heritage site in east China's Jiangsu Province, said they need two or three times more funds for the protection of the gardens every year.

"We want to explore new ways of raising funds besides the tourism income. And the heritage lottery is a good method," Zhou said.

The lottery market is strictly controlled in China, and only welfare lottery and sports lottery are issued.

(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2006)