China's Palace Museum collects 1.8 million items

The number of cultural relics owned by the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, has surpassed 1.8 million, the museum curator told Xinhua on Sunday.

The museum has registered a total of 1,807,558 cultural relics in its collection, according to Shan Jixiang.

About 1.68 million of the items are classed as very precious, meaning the museum has 42 percent of all such items kept in museums cross the country, Shan said.

However, the curator warned that a great deal of the collection is damaged and is in need of proper restoration and preservation.

Shan said the museum only has room to showcase about 10,000 cultural relics each year and it may take over 100 years for the entire collection to be put on display to the public.

He said the museum is planning to make more areas of the Forbidden City open to the public, from the current 52 percent of its total area to 65 percent next year, and later 76 percent.

He also pledged more efforts to develop cultural relics-related products to make the country's cultural treasures easier to access for the public.