On December 10th, the international forum of “Maritime Silk Road and the Progress of Global Civilization” was held in Ningbuo. This forum was hosted by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Ningbuo municipal government as sponsors, Zhejiang Province Bureau of Cultural Relics as co-sponsors, and Ningbuo Museum as an organizer. Totally over 40 home and overseas experts on Maritime Silk Road were present at the forum., including HUANG Haotao, Secretary general of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Julien GLEINA, Cultural commissioner of UNESCO Beijing Office, GUAN Qiang, Director of World Cultural Heritage Department of State Administration of Cultural Heritage, and leaders from seven cities applying for World Heritage.

For the UNESCO has paid close attention on the application project of Silk Road in recent years, State Administration of Cultural Heritage is active in coordinating the process of Central Asia applying Land Silk Road for World Heritage. And at the same time, the administration is making great efforts to succeed in application project of Maritime Silk Road. In 2009, State Administration of Cultural Heritage held a conference in Yangzhou. In this conference, five cities, Penglai, Yangzhou, Mingbuo, Quanzhou and Guangzhou were taken into the application project of “Maritime Silk Road”. This year, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences cooperated with Ningbuo municipal government, to establish the research center of “Maritime Silk Road” in Ningbuo Museum. Furthermore, the mechanism of Cultural heritage survey, protection, utilization, and joint conference of cooperative application work, was set up in Beihai, Guangzhou, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, Ningbuo, Yangzhou and Penglai, altogether seven cities.