The China Nationality Museum announced plans to create an archive system of ethnic cultural relics in order to better protect the country's ethnic minority culture.

"The museum will collect and rescue cultural relics of the country's 55 minority ethnic groups during the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010)," said a source with the museum.

While ethnic minorities account for less than 10 percent of the country's total population, their contributions to Chinese culture and history are essential to preserve. An increasing number of traditions belonging to these groups are disappearing due to rapid social and economic development, and many ethnic cultural relics lack proper protection.

China collected over a million ancient ethnic books and published more than 5,000 between 2001 and 2005, but the museum aims to broaden the scope of these protection efforts.

Twenty-one ethnic groups in China have their own written languages. Although there are currently more than 100,000 ethnic language translators, most of them have not received professional training, statistics show.

China Ethnic Language Translation Center is working to train these translators in order to standardize the study of ethnic languages.

(Xinhua News Agency February 25, 2007)