Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Liu Qi made the remarks during his visit to local cultural and natural properties, including the Drum Tower, Guozijian, and the Confucius Temple, as the country's first Cultural Heritage Day draws on.

Debriefing on recent results of the protection work presented by Beijing Municipal Culture Bureau and relevant district governments, Liu urged departments concerned to push forward the study on the rooftop designs for the traditional houses within the protection areas and reflect local architectural characteristics as viewed from the air.

He said a key point of the content of "People's Olympics" is to show the world local courtyard siheyuan, a traditional residential compound, adding that residential houses that are in danger shall be renovated.

Protection of historic and cultural heritages constitutes an essential part of the strategic concept -- "New Beijing Great Olympics" and an important resource to realize the ideal of sustainable development, said Liu. Such effort is in line with the increasing demand of the general public for cultural pursuit, he told the officials.

In recent years, local authorities have achieved a great breakthrough in protecting cultural relics and historic and cultural sites.

In 2000, the municipal government decided to pour in the following three years 330 million yuan in the project to restore cultural relics and sites that are protected at the municipal level and above.

"We must maintain harmony between construction of new projects and maintenance of the heritages, and build a liveable city while preserving the ancient styles of the city," Liu said.

He underlined the importance of the planning to protect the projects and encouraged officials to absorb the suggestions of the experts.