The Chinese capital city of Beijing launched a series of activities on Thursday to mark the World Museum Day.

The activities, with the theme of "museums and globalization", will run until May 19, officials from the Beijing Administration of Cultural Heritage said at a forum on museums on Thursday.

Museums across Beijing will stage over 20 new exhibitions during the coming three weeks. They include a China-Nepal culture week at Baitasi, or White Pagoda Temple, in downtown Beijing, an exhibition of Japanese cultural heritage in the Palace Museum, and many on modern Chinese history and traditional Chinese culture.

Meanwhile the Capital Museum is asking people to donate cultural relics in their private collections to public museums.

Beijing at present has 118 museums, which are expected to increase to 150 by 2008, officials say.

The municipal government of Beijing plans to build more museums close to the future Olympic Village in the northern part of the city.

More museums will be built to promote science, technology, environmental protection and ecology particularly among children, said Mei Ninghua, director of the Beijing Administration of Cultural Heritage.

The International Museum Association declared May 18 World Museum Day in 1977. Beijing has held activities to mark the day since 1995.

(Xinhua News Agency April 25, 2002)