BEIJING: The newly revised Law on Protection of Cultural Relics will take effect on March 1, guiding the protection and management of these precious items to better meet the requirements of the new era and give cultural heritage a new lease of life, experts and officials said.
On Nov 8, the revision was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature. It’s the second revision since the law was implemented in 1982, following the first in 2002.
According to Liang Ying, an official from the NPC Standing Committee’s Legislative Affairs Commission, as the first law focusing on the cultural field since the founding of New China, the Law on Protection of Cultural Relics has played a significant role in enhancing the protection of cultural relics, preserving outstanding historical and cultural heritage, promoting scientific research, and building a socialist spiritual and material civilization.
“In the new era, our work related to cultural relics faces new situations and tasks…. To meet the needs of the development of the cultural relics sector, it was necessary to revise the law,” he said. Highlights of the newly revised law include enhanced requirements for protecting ungraded immovable cultural heritage sites, which weren’t clearly covered in the past. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
