(To Quoc) - At the 8th session of the 15th National Assembly, the National Assembly will consider and pass the Law on Cultural Heritage (amended). According to National Assembly delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga, Deputy Head of the Delegation of National Assembly Deputies of Hai Duong province, the amendment of the Law on Cultural Heritage will be an opportunity for private museums to develop.
According to delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga, in the history of human cultural development, museums were born as a type of cultural institution that is commonly understood as a place to preserve typical material and spiritual values belonging to the past of a field, a community culture, and more broadly, of humanity.
Typical material and spiritual values of the past are displayed and introduced by the museum through a system of original documents and artifacts with multi-faceted or one-sided values such as historical - cultural - scientific, aesthetic values... These are authentic, objective evidences that cannot be redone or created by human subjective will.
In Vietnam today, museums have increasingly affirmed their position in the country's cultural institutional system, contributing to the implementation of the political tasks assigned by the Party and the State in the work of educating the tradition of patriotism, the spirit of bravery and resilience in the struggle to protect the Fatherland, the awareness of preserving and honoring the national cultural identity, while meeting the needs of disseminating scientific knowledge and improving the cultural and spiritual life of the public. Museums have become places to preserve the material and spiritual heritage of the history of building and defending the country of the Vietnamese people, as information centers, schools and cultural addresses for the public.
National Museum of History - where more than 200,000 documents and artifacts of Vietnamese cultural history from ancient prehistoric times to 1945 are kept and preserved, of which about 20 artifacts/documents are considered National Treasures.
By the end of 2023, Vietnam had a total of 181 museums, including: 127 public museums (04 national museums under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 07 specialized museums under central ministries and branches, 36 museums under units under ministries and branches, 80 provincial museums) and 70 non-public museums. The total number of artifacts is about 4 million, of which 265 are national treasures recognized by the Prime Minister.
In recent years, the number of museum visitors has fluctuated greatly. The peak was in 2018 and 2019, when the total number of museum visitors (including visitors to special exhibitions and traveling exhibitions) reached over 17 million.
According to the delegates, museums are one of the potential destinations, capable of attracting domestic and foreign visitors. If given proper attention and investment, the museum system will maximize its inherent values, contribute to preserving and developing cultural and historical values and be one of the destinations to attract and develop tourism.
Delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga said that the current Law on Cultural Heritage stipulates museums in Section 2, Chapter 4. In particular, Article 47 of the Law stipulates: "The museum system includes public museums and non-public museums".
It can be seen that the Law has recognized the non-public museum model. However, apart from this provision, most of the current Laws do not have any specific provisions for non-public museums. The requirements for public museums and non-public museums are the same. The lack of specific regulations and incentives for the non-public museum model is one of the difficulties that makes it difficult for the private museum model to develop.
Hoa Cuong Museum - the first private museum in Ha Tinh preserves rare artifacts of national culture.
According to the delegate, in terms of economics, museum business is not an attractive industry for investors, because in the current context, the profits from museum business are not high (except for some prominent museums, conveniently located at tourist attractions that are already crowded with visitors).
Therefore, investors in museum activities are often passionate and dedicated people, originating from the desire to spread, preserve and promote cultural values. They can be organizations, businesses, or individuals who simply understand and love a certain field, and have the conditions to collect and display artifacts. The lack of specific regulations for private museums, but instead placing too many legal requirements and operating methods similar to those of a public museum, will become a barrier to the development of this type.
Therefore, according to the delegate, in the revision of the Law on Cultural Heritage, it is necessary to research, consider, and develop separate policies and regulations for private museums, to promote and develop this type in the coming time.
In the draft Law on Cultural Heritage (amended), private museums are regulated in Chapter VI. Compared to the current Law on Cultural Heritage, the draft Law on Cultural Heritage (amended) has paid more attention to private museums. If in the current Law on Cultural Heritage, museums are only designed in one section (section 3, Chapter IV), in the draft Law on Amended, museums have been separated into a separate chapter with 14 Articles.
However, delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga said that private museums have not been properly mentioned. The draft still mainly regulates public museums, museum tasks, conditions for establishing public museums, investment in construction, renovation, upgrading of architectural works, technical infrastructure, indoor and outdoor exhibitions of public museums, ranking of public museums, and authority to rank public museums. Meanwhile, regulations on private museums have not appeared much and some regulations are still unclear.
The draft Law continues to inherit the current Law on Cultural Heritage, dividing the museum system into public museums and non-public museums. Non-public museums are invested by "Vietnamese organizations and individuals" or "foreign organizations and individuals", ensuring operating conditions and organized according to the model of enterprises, non-public career organizations or other models (Clause 2, Article 64 of the draft).
Thus, according to the delegate, a private museum is a non-public museum invested by a "Vietnamese individual" or a "foreign individual", while the two concepts of "Vietnamese individual" or "foreign individual" are still ambiguous. How should a "Vietnamese individual" be understood, as a Vietnamese citizen or a person with Vietnamese nationality, living in Vietnam. Similarly, "foreign individual" is also a concept that is not easy to determine the exact meaning and is not consistent with the concepts in the Vietnamese legal system.
National Assembly Delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga, Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Hai Duong province.
Delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga said that currently, in Vietnam, private museums are still quite rare, although we have many individuals collecting antiques. The number of private museums in Vietnam at this time can be counted on the fingers. That rarity is due to many reasons such as not having enough legal corridors to establish private museums, lack of incentive mechanisms for establishment, limited operations so they are not popular and few people know about them.
Although small, private museums have played and are playing an extremely important role in collecting, preserving, and promoting the value of cultural heritage. Many private museums possess extremely valuable heritages. We can mention Lai Xa Photography Museum, established by an individual from Lai Xa village, Hanoi, with nearly 500 valuable artifacts about the history of the development of photography in the village in particular and in Vietnam in general; Le Khac Tam's Medical Museum in Ho Chi Minh City; Phan Thi Ngoc My Fine Arts Museum in Hanoi...
Without any incentive mechanism, private museums must completely finance their own expenses from individual investment, leading to difficulties in organizing exhibitions, preserving artifacts, and welcoming visitors. This is also a bottleneck in the development of private museums. Many valuable collections of individuals remain private collections, their value has not been fully developed, and there are no conditions for widespread display.
"Therefore, when amending the Law on Cultural Heritage, it is necessary to have specific and practical regulations to develop private museums. In particular, it is necessary to have separate regulations for private museums: from conditions, procedures, and procedures for establishment and operation, to preferential policies of the State to develop private museums.
Only then can we ensure the most necessary conditions for private museums to promote their values and actively contribute to preserving and promoting the values of the nation's cultural heritage," delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga expressed./.
Source: https://toquoc.vn/sua-doi-luat-di-san-van-hoa-dam-bao-duoc-nhung-dieu-kien-can-thiet-nhat-de-bao-tang-tu-nhan-phat-huy-gia-tri-20241120124440129.htm
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