Forbidden City facelift to finish in June

After more than five years, renovation work at the Forbidden City will be completed ahead of the Olympics, a spokesman for the Palace Museum said yesterday.

"The government has spent about 400 million yuan ($57,000) on the first phase of the project, which began in 2003, and will spend 1 million yuan a year until 2020," Jin Hongkui, deputy director of the museum, told China Daily.

"The renovation of all the buildings along the axes is expected to be completed by the end of June, in time for the Beijing Olympics," he said.