RESIDENTS have been benefiting from the fast development of public cultural service in the city.

    The city started increasing its spending on the construction of its public cultural service system in 2005 and maintained an average 19 percent growth in cultural spending each year between 2008 and 2010.

    More than 3 billion yuan was invested by the city government on public cultural services in the past five years.

    “The ultimate goal of a city’s cultural development is to benefit each citizen,” said Jiang Zhengxuan, head of the city’s cultural bureau.

    Two years ago, the city government started subsidizing performances at the Happy Qingdao Stage, which integrated performance media like dance, singing, opera and symphony. Therefore, citizens can enjoy performances by buying cheap tickets.

    The cultural bureau moved to offer 1,000 free tickets to citizens Saturday on the performance of Lu Opera, a traditional Chinese art form, on the stage.

    In addition, the city built and rebuilt a large number of public cultural facilities like Qingdao Grand Theater, Qingdao University Concert Hall, Qingdao Museum, Qingdao Library and Qingdao Concert Hall in the past six years.

    The city government has spent over 2 billion yuan on the construction of key public cultural facilities in the past five years.

    Cultural activity centers have been built in the city’s towns, subdistricts and more than 3,600 villages.

    There are 65 cultural squares, each measuring over 10,000 square meters, and a citywide public cultural service network has taken shape.

    In 2008, the city started providing free access to public libraries, museums, cultural centers and art galleries.

    On average, more than 1.25 million readers visited the Qingdao Library in 2010.

    Qingdao Museum has seen an increasing number of visitors since free access was introduced. A team of volunteers was established by the museum to promote cultural knowledge in residential communities, nursing home, military camps, villages and schools.

    More than 600,000 books were provided to subdistrict and community libraries between 2008 and 2009. A total of 13,000 screenings of movies were completed in the city’s villages between 2009 and 2010.

    (Li Hao, Li Wei)