The Arts Department of the Ministry of Culture announced last week that the Wenhua Awards, the highest prize for performing arts issued by the government, and the awards issued by the China Arts Festival, will be merged into one.

According to Feng Yuan, director of the Arts Department, they decided to combine the two major awards because duplicated competitions over recent years have led to the development of an award-oriented arts industry.

The Wenhua Awards were introduced in 1991 and issued every year until 1997. From 1998, they have been issued every two years.

The main problem with the Wenhua Awards is that they have become the focus of many of the contestants, said Feng.

Although all of the shows are required to be performed in theatres for a certain period of time, the audiences' response never has an impact on the judging.

What's more, experts judge the shows only by viewing videos of the performances and not by watching them live.

Organized by the Ministry of Culture, the China Arts Festival started to issue awards every three years from 1987.

As originally planned, the 11th Wenhua Awards will be issued next year. Meanwhile, the 7th China Arts Festival, which was to be held in September in Hangzhou, in East China's Zhejiang Province, has been put off until 2004 due to SARS.

After the merger next September, the China Arts Festival will cancel its awards and the Wenhua Awards will be issued every three years from then on.

Factors including audiences' views and the box-office takings will be taken into consideration.

(China Daily July 25, 2003)