China's National Museum, under expansion for nearly two years, will open partly to public in September while the whole project is expected to be finished by May 2010.

The museum will open its northern section to serve a grand exhibition on rejuvenation of China in September as part of activities to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of new China, Saturday's Beijing Times quoted Huang Chen, an official with the museum's publicity department, as saying.

More than 1,000 items of collection will be displayed during the exhibition, elaborating the history of Chinese civilization.

The National Museum of China, one of the country's most important museums, now has a collection of 620,000 pieces, including rare ones such as bronze vessels from Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC) and the jade burial articles from Han Dynasty (202 BC to 220 AD).

The expansion project kicked off in March 2007 to upgrade the original 50-year-old building and add a new one.

Upon its completion, the museum will have a floor space of 192,000 square meters, almost three times of the original one.

Construction of the framework finished on Friday. The whole project will open to public in August 2010.

(Xinhua News Agency January 10, 2009)