According to the contract, Guangzhou will be the permanent host city from this year on for the annual music event, which presents the highest awards for Chinese music.

And the Guangdong provincial capital will organize the Third Golden Bell Awards for Chinese Music this year in early December.

The previous two events had taken place in north China's Hebei Province and east China's Fujian Province.

Lin Shusen, Party secretary of Guangzhou, said the staging of the event in his city will further help raise Guangzhou's cultural reputation at home and abroad.

"And the event will certainly help promote Guangzhou's cultural development and contribute to the cultivation of culture in Guangdong Province," Lin said.

Lin said the prosperous Guangdong provincial capital, which used to be cited as "a cultural desert," is determined to become a modern "metropolis of music" in the years to come.

And Tao Cheng, director of the Guangzhou Bureau of Culture, said his bureau is planning to annually organize an international music festival during the awarding ceremony in December.

In addition to the Golden Bell Awards for Chinese Music, many music-related events, including lectures, singing competitions, exhibitions and seminars will also be organized during the Guangzhou International Music Festival, which will annually take place in the first half of December.

Tao believed many famous international musicians will annually be attracted to Guangzhou during the music festival.

Tao said his bureau would invest more than 3.5 million yuan (US$421,680) this year to help build the coming third Golden Bell Awards for Chinese Music into a major musical event in December.

Wu Yanze, executive chairman of the China Association of Musicians, said Guangzhou was the right city to permanently hold the Golden Bell Awards for Chinese Music.

In addition to its prosperous economy, Guangzhou and the whole Pearl River Delta have a solid foundation of music, Wu said.

"Cantonese music has been well-known at home and abroad for quite a long time," Wu added.

Many famous Chinese musicians, including Xian Xinghai and Xiao Youmei, have come from Guangdong Province.

(China Daily July 15, 2003)