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Beijing's municipal government is making long-term plans to further protect the rich cultural and historical heritage of the 3,000-year-old capital.

Sources at the Beijing Municipal Planning Commission and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics said the city government is drawing up a long-term strategy to protect and repair the city's relics.

The strategy is to be published and put into effect early next year, according to the sources.

Planning commission officials said the city's cultural and historical relics are "not burdens but precious treasures'' and said that the municipal government would be strongly committed to the plan.

According to city officials, the municipal government will protect the city's 25 cultural-relic zones, including Zhonggulou, Nanchizi and Dashalan. The zones as a whole account for 37 per cent of the 62.5 square kilometres of the old city areas of the Ming (1368-1644) and the Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

Officials said the municipal government will also make more effort to protect the city's five World Heritage Sites as named by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The sites are the Palace Museum (the Forbidden City), the Great Wall, the Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian, the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven.

The height of new buildings around these relics will be strictly limited, sources said.

City officials said the protection of underground cultural relics is on the agenda.

Officials at Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics said 37 underground relic sites have been discovered, mainly in the city's suburbs.

Sources also said a relic park is to be built on the site of Yuanmingyuan (the Old Summer Palace). Some of the residents and institutions around the site have been moved out since last year.

Beijing also plans to move some residents and institutions out of the old city areas and repair the city's river networks, according to sources.

The city plans to inject over 330 million yuan (US$39 million) into the protection of cultural relics by the end of next year, cultural relics bureau.

Beijing boasts over 7,000 cultural relics, with more than 100 scattered around the old city. (China Daily)