The Chinese government will strengthen efforts this year to help enrich people's cultural life and create more access to cultural information, according to a two-day national work meeting on mass culture that ended Tuesday.

Vice-Premier Li Lanqing said at the meeting that the government plans to allocate more money to build grassroots cultural facilities for people, especially farmers.

Each county will likely have a culture center and a public library by 2005, and each community or village will have a fixed place for carrying out cultural activities, he said.

So far, the Ministry of Culture has decided to strengthen efforts in several aspects to fulfill this target.

The efforts will include a project starting this year to build an information system that enables people in different parts of the country to share cultural information with each other, Cultural Minister Sun Jiazheng said.

Taking advantage of the Internet and satellite communication technology, the system will especially benefit people in poor areas of the western and northern parts who usually have few opportunities to find entertainment or enjoy arts.

According to the 2000 statistics, only 3 percent of the population went to theaters, 6 percent visited exhibitions and museums.

But when this system comes into shape in 2005, people will be able to go to local public libraries and cultural centers to read books, watch performances and appreciate precious art works that have all been digitized.

In 2000, 57 out of 2,100 counties still had no places for cultural activities, while 144 counties had no libraries.

(China Daily April 24, 2002)