Guangzhou plans to build, in its ten districts including Panyu and Huadu, 75 squares or plazas, of which 23 will be cultural squares. According to the reply of the Publicity Department of Guangzhou Municipality to a proposal submitted by Guangzhou Committee of CPPCC, the culture plazas located in the Tianhe Sports Center and Grand City Plaza have been completed.

Officials from the Publicity Department of Guangzhou Municipality introduced that more than 300 cultural performances are held annually at over 240 culture plazas or squares in Guangzhou. In addition, Panyu Plaza has been recognized as China's culture plaza with unique characteristics.

The Planning Bureau of Guangzhou Municipality is undertaking assessment and planning for squares and plazas including a sight-seeing tower plaza, culture and art plaza in Zhujiang New City, Hero Plaza and Haixinsha Plaza in order to pursue a perfect match between culture plazas, sports facilities and the city's culture. Other plazas and squares like civic plazas, memorial courts and commercial plazas shall boast partial functions as culture plazas. According to the plan, by 2009, there will be a standard culture plaza available for every one thousand citizens.

There are also some problems about those culture plazas. The biggest one is that since those culture plazas didn't belong to the departments in charge of culture issues, they had to gain permission from the relevant departments to rent the plazas, which in a way has curbed the development of cultural activities.

Editor: Donald