China's new policy is set to augment the country's insufficient subsidy on cultural services, including athletic games, museums and libraries. (Photo : Reuters)
China's State Council announced on Monday that the central government is urging private sectors to take part in public works, which are related to cultural services, by extending government procurement deals, as the nation is seeking sources to uplift funds on cultural services, the Global Times reported.
According to the Chinese chief administrative authority, the new policy is set to augment China's insufficient subsidy on cultural services, which include athletic games, museums and libraries.
There are also almost 40 different cultural services available for private dealers, the State Council added.
Aside from encouraging the private sector to join public works, the central government has also briefed the local governments to conduct events like non-profit athletic games, movie screenings and book club expos, in order to preserve the country's heritage and management of museums as well as the public libraries and theaters, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Private sectors should go through proper listing and qualification as they need to have government procurement contracts, the State Council stated in a released document.
Procedures devised by the local government, which are based on local conditions, will also be acknowledged by the State Council, the document added.
On the other hand, some experts anticipate that the new procedure will result in a positive outcome.
"The new policy is to break the monopoly of government-sponsored cultural institutions in public cultural services," Wu Zhinan, a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua, adding that the policy may deliver productive competition as well as help enhance the quality of public cultural service if planned and implemented properly.
"However, the procedure for bidding for such contracts should be tightly supervised and open to the public so as to prevent backdoor activities," the researcher said.
In 2013, the Chinese government has spent approximately 117.27 billion yuan ($19 billion) on public cultural services, which is twice the amount spent in 2010, China's Ministry of Culture revealed.
However, the subsidy was not able to carry out all the demands as the large percentage of the fund was spent on public cultural services operations, the department added.
