Thirty-three Museums in Beijing, 20 museums in the northwestern Gansu Province and nine museums in the southern Guangdong Province started to open to visitors for free on Friday.

Earlier, some museums had already stopped charging admissions.

According to the government's plan, the number of free entry museums across the country will reach 600 by April 1 this year. They will be joined by 800 museums next year.

"I believe the free admission policy will attract more people to enter the museums, which will help improve the public's cultural awareness," said Xiao Yonggao, a visitor from northeastern Liaoning Province, at Beijing's Capital Museum on Friday.

The Capital Museum, which opened at the end of 2005, received far fewer visitors than its capacity of 3,000 people per day before Friday when it charged 30 yuan (US$4.3) for entry.

More than 5,000 people made reservations online or by phone to visit the museum on Friday, said Kong Fansi, head of the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage.

The museum will impose an upper limit for visitors every day by distributing a certain number of tickets. Kong predicted more than 3,000 people will visit the museum the whole day.

Historical architecture and sites like the Forbidden City are not on the list of free admission venues.

Beijing has 143 museums, of which 69 are run by the municipal government. The government will earmark 120 million yuan (US$17 million) to the museums a year for the free admission.

Gansu Province will open another 20 museums and memorial halls this year and its remaining 82 museums will be open for free next year.

Vice Minister of Finance Zhang Shaochun said in February that the operating expenses of all national museums and memorial halls would be covered from the central budget, while institutions at the provincial level would be jointly supported by central and local budgets.

The central government will invest 1.2 billion yuan (US$171 million) to free museums, memorial halls and patriotic educational bases, according to the central government's budget report in March.

"The free entry of museums and memorial halls must be guaranteed and should in no way be hampered by fund shortages," he said.

China issued a circular on January 23 saying that all museums, memorial halls and national patriotism education bases would offer free admission by 2009, excluding some cultural relics and historical sites.

China has more than 2,300 museums, which received 150 million people last year, according to Zhang Bai, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

(Xinhua News Agency March 29, 2008)