BEIJING: For a nation as rich in cultural artifacts as China, ensuring that the trade of such items is safe, legal and fair for both buyers and sellers has been a key endeavor for many years.
Since 2019, Shanghai has been leading the way as a pilot for the rest of the nation in improving the market and trading in cultural artifacts, rolling out reforms and regulations aimed at better protecting Chinese cultural relics, and ensuring their trade is licensed and legal.
In May of the same year, the Shanghai Cultural Relics Circulation Association, China’s first regional association for cultural artifacts businesses, was established to supervise and promote the industry’s development.
Later in November 2020, the National Cultural Heritage Administration signed a cooperative agreement with the Shanghai government to start a pilot program to build the city into an “innovative demonstration hub for protecting, showcasing and retrieving cultural relics, as well as in cultivating industrial talent”.
Since then, Shanghai has introduced numerous favorable policies to support a more regulated market so that the right of ownership can be determined as well as the licensed evaluation of artifacts. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
