This figure comes close to the entire national annual spending on relics preservation.

Almost 100 cultural relics, including ancient temples, buildings, city walls and war-ravaged imperial gardens have received a new lease of life thanks to investment from the municipal and district governments.

A good example of this is the Changpu Creek east to the Forbidden City which has seen daylight after more than 40 years buried underground. It was opened to the public in the autumn.

In the late 1960s the creek was boarded over and warehouses storing decorations for national parades were built on it. Now the centuries-old creek has been restored to its original look after a six month facelift.

Over the next five years, Beijing will allocate another 600 million yuan (US$72.6 million) to maintain and renovate a further 100 places of historic interest across the city, according to the Beijing Cultural Relics Bureau.

Meanwhile, millions of dollars from local districts and other sources will also be ploughed into the ambitious facelift plan, making the total investment reach nearly 7 billion yuan (US$850 million).

Before 2000, many of the over 200 historical and cultural sites under the protection of municipal and higher levels of government had not been repaired for years, some had not received any major repairs since the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Some of the numerous valuable ancient buildings and historical relics have been used as offices, storehouses or workshops, and some others have been used for housing.

The renovation work since 2000 indicates that Beijing is increasingly aware of the importance of heritage protection, which is a good sign for an old city with numerous ancient treasures, historical experts say.

(China Daily February 27, 2003)