More than 30 projects to repair and protect Beijing's cultural relics will start this year in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Games.

Kong Fanchi, deputy director of Beijing Cultural Relics Bureau, told a press conference yesterday the renovation of Tian'anmen Rostrum is also complete and work on 14 other places of historic interest is under way.

Beijing has announced that it will invest 600 million yuan (US$72.6 million) between 2003 and 2008 to maintain and renovate more than 100 places of historic interest across the city.

The budget supports the "People's Olympics" concept that Beijing promoted in its bid for the Games.

Ancient temples, imperial gardens, residences and tombs will be renovated during the five-year plan, to showcase the city's history to athletes and tourists at the 2008 Olympics.

This year, 32 renovation projects will begin, one-third of which will be completed before the year's end, said Wang Yuwei, an official with the bureau.

Topping Beijing's agenda is the renovation of historical sites and landscapes along the city's central axis.

Kong said Yongdingmen Rostrum at the southern end of the axis, which was pulled down in 1957, will be rebuilt from October and become a new symbol of the north to south axis road.

Meanwhile, buildings in the area between the Temple of Heaven and the Xiannong Altar will be removed, opening up the line of sight at the southern end of the central axis.

Kong said all 5,200 households and 90 per cent of the 120 organizations and companies in the area have now moved out of the district.

Other sites to be refurbished include "at risk" sections of the Great Wall, the ruins of the capital city of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), Zhengjue Temple, Changchun Temple, relics of Hanjingtang (Tripataka Hall) at the old Summer Palace and two of the 13 Ming Tombs.

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