MORE areas of the Forbidden City in Beijing will be open to the public this year and the museum will remain open into the evening, the Beijing Morning Post reported Saturday.

    Shan Jixiang, curator of the Beijing Palace Museum, said that nearly 65 percent of the museum will be open to visitors after its renovation work is completed, and new areas include the Palace of Benevolent Peace, Shoukang Palace, Duan Gate, Yanchi Tower of Wu Gate and the city wall of Donghua Gate.

    The museum said it will stay open longer in an effort to woo visitors. But according to Chinese reports, only the Duan Gate digital exhibition hall and pedestrian streets outside Shenwu Gate will open into the evening.

    The Duan Gate digital exhibition hall will open this year, enabling visitors to see the whole picture of the Forbidden City without having to enter the museum.

    Construction of pedestrian streets will soon be finished on the east and west sides of Shenwu Gate Square, where books and products related to the museum will be sold.

    The museum has seen its business prosper during the Chinese New Year, with a new line of products designed to mark the occasion.

    Items including calendars, Spring Festival scrolls and a “fortune bucket” (a small cylinder containing blessing scrolls and posters) spurred trade. Some creations sold out within days, such as calendars, 200,000 of which flew off the shelves, leaving demand for extra copies.

    “The museum has rich cultural resources that can be developed. We are trying to find out what the public wants and make the cultural relics come to life,” said Zhou Jianxiong, deputy chief of the sales section in the service center.

    The museum has designed several novelties in recent years, including palace dolls and household items such as paper fans that feature cultural relic-related themes.

    The Forbidden City, built at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century, has undergone extensive renovations over the past 10 years.

    (SD-Agencies)