Residents in Guangzhou, the capital of South China's Guangdong Province, will soon have access to nearly all official archives as the city pioneers in making government work transparent to the public.

A large newly built archives, may be the largest in the country, covering an area of some 14,000 square meters. They will be open to the public in late May.

Archives in China used to be largely confidential. Even archivists themselves would not be allowed to read files and data they kept unless they had been given the nod by authorities.

Guangzhou has taken the lead in China to introduce a local regulation on opening its files to ordinary people.

Xu Dazhang, director of Guangdong Provincial Archives, said the move will also open files up to foreign people and compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan who have official passports, travel documents and visas.

They will be allowed to read the government's red documents, which used to be kept away from foreigners and local ordinary people, Xu told China Daily yesterday.

Located in Guangzhou's busy Tianhe District, Guangdong Provincial Archives is the largest of provincial-level archives in China.

Starting April 15, the files, materials and data in the current archives were moved into the new building.

The current archive is situated in the courtyard of Guangdong Provincial Committee of Communist Party of China where tight security is in force.

And local residents can enter by showing their identity cards, employee's cards, student's identity cards or soldier certificates at the entrances, according to Xu.

Local residents can also have access to the materials they are interested in via letters, fax, telephone and e-mail, Xu said.

"Those who want to read government's confidential documents in the archives still have to have a letter of introduction from their companies and work units," Xu added.

Guangdong provincial leaders have been pioneering in making government work more transparent by decreeing that key information should be open to public scrutiny, Xu said.

The provincial government has vowed that any official who obstructs the process will be sacked.

According to the Regulation on Making Government Information Public, residents will be told of major policies on finance, personnel exchange, foreign affairs, trade and other key industries before these policies go into effect.

(China Daily April 19, 2004)