Li Qun, head of the National Cultural Heritage Administration led a delegation to visit several coastal countries along the Mediterranean sea

May 28 to June 6, head of the National Cultural Heritage Administration and vice minister of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, led a delegation of cultural heritage department of the Chinese government to visit Cyprus, Egypt and Tunisia. Chinese ambassadors in each country accompanied in relevant activities.

Li Qun pointed out that in March this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Civilization Initiative, which provides Chinese solutions to promote the exchange and cultural mutual learning and the progress of world civilizations. China and Cyprus are both ancient civilizations, and the two countries have frequent cooperation in cultural exchanges, heritage preservation and tourism. China is willing to work with Cyprus in the implementation of the Global Civilization Initiative and strengthen the exchange and mutual understanding of civilizations between the two countries. The heads of the cultural, heritage and tourism departments of Cyprus agreed that the foundation for cultural and heritage exchanges and cooperation between China and Cyprus is profound and the prospects are bright. Cyprus is willing to work with China to unleash the full potential of cooperation in cultural heritage between the two countries, coordinate positions in international multilateral cooperation mechanisms and continue to retrieve of lost cultural objects from overseas.

In recent years, under the leadership of the Chinese and Egyptian heads of state, China and Egypt have made numerous achievements in the fields of cultural, cultural heritage and tourism cooperation. Li Qun spoke highly of the important achievements of the archaeology project jointly launched by China and Egypt at the Temple of Mentu, and said that China is willing to further expand the scale of this joint project with Egypt, strengthen direct cooperation between national institutions by joint construction of the Sino-Egyptian Joint Center for Underwater Archaeology and the Sino-Egyptian Joint Institute of Archaeology to conduct comparative studies of ancient civilizations. China is willing to hold exhibitions of the two civilizations together with Egypt , and deepen practical cooperation in the fields of underwater archaeology and cultural heritage protection, conservation and restoration of cultural sites and monuments, world heritage declaration and management, and the retrieve of lost cultural objects from overseas. During this visit, Chinese Ambassador to Egypt Liao Liqiang handed over the 33 lost ancient coins to Li Qun returned by the Egyptian government. Meetings with Egypt’s major national cultural institutions and museums were held during the visit.

During the research tour to the Ben-Arous site in Tunisia, Li Qun listened to the presentation of the archaeologists of the two countries on the current status of the site and the archaeological investigation progress. He pointed out that the Ben-Arous site has high research value, and wished that the joint archaeological team of China and Tunisia would work together to promote the investigation, excavation and protection of the site. By deepening the understanding of ancient Carthaginian-Roman civilization through solid archaeological work, carrying out comparative studies of civilizations, the two countries would promote the project to become the model of cooperation in cultural heritage between China and Tunisia in implementing “the Belt and Road Initiative”.