Shanxi strengthens protection and utilization of low-level cultural relics

In recent years, North China's Shanxi province has made strong efforts to protect low-level cultural relics within the province by clearly identifying low-level cultural relic resources, preservation status, and funding requirements.

Low-level cultural relics are the municipal and county-level cultural relic protection units and immovable cultural relics that have not yet been approved as cultural relic protection units.

In the third national cultural relic census, Shanxi registered and recognized a total of 53,875 immovable cultural relics, accounting for about 7 percent of the national total. Among them, the total proportion of low-level cultural relics reached 94 percent, showing a large quantity and diverse array of types. The task of protecting low-level cultural relics is an arduous one.

Shanxi recently issued the "Implementation Measures for the Safety Responsibility System of Cultural Relics in Shanxi Province", which clarifies the responsibilities and tasks of governments at all levels, cultural relic administrative departments, relevant industry departments, and direct responsible persons for cultural relic safety, ensuring that immovable cultural relics are being properly supervised and managed.

Meanwhile, Shanxi has established a meteorological disaster warning information sharing mechanism in conjunction with meteorological departments, taking multiple measures to improve risk prediction and disaster prevention and reduction capabilities to protect immovable cultural relics.

In addition, the province has raised more than 25 million yuan ($3.45 million) to carry out emergency repairs on 22 disaster-stricken cultural relics through various methods and channels.

Furthermore, since 2022, Shanxi has planned to train a total of 600 general talents specializing in cultural relics in 117 cities, districts, and counties across the province for five consecutive years, focusing on easing the shortage of cultural relic talents at the grassroots level.