China News Agency, Boao, April 21 (Reporter Wu Kan) Xu Rongmao, Chairman of the China Federation of Overseas Chinese Businessmen and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Shimao Group, said in an exclusive interview with China News Agency "Focus on China" recently that he looks forward to establishing a mature overseas cultural relics return. The system makes the return of lost cultural relics a normal state.
"I am very concerned about the protection and utilization of cultural relics. It has always been my wish to make a modest contribution to the inheritance of Chinese traditional culture." Xu Rongmao said that in 2016, we were fortunate to donate to the Palace Museum "Research Protection Project" of the Palace Museum. We have a relationship with the Forbidden City; in 2017, we bought back the national treasure "Silk Road Landscape Map" that was lost overseas and donated it to the Forbidden City; with the strong support of the Palace Museum, we built the Shimao Maritime Silk Road Museum in Fujian Province. It is officially open to the public in December.
He said that he is very pleased to see that many overseas Chinese have participated in the preservation and cultural inheritance of cultural relics in recent years. There are overseas Chinese collectors who donated their lifelong collections to domestic museums, and there are also Chinese who use their own convenience to recover lost cultural relics. Active mediation, they contributed to the "return" of cultural relics through various channels.
In Xu Rongmao's view, the process of building a mature overseas cultural relics return system requires the combination of official government forces and civil society forces.
"It is recommended that under the premise of effective supervision, we should further open up the reduction or exemption of import link taxes for non-state-owned collection units of public interest in a timely manner."
He said that at the 3rd CIIE, the pilot exploration of tax incentives for art imports has opened a new channel for the return of overseas Chinese cultural relics. He hopes that the results of the pilot can be actively expanded in the future to truly make the return of lost cultural relics a normal state.
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