China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) said on Wednesday it would further simplify the permit procedure for overseas media to shoot cultural sites, shortening the processing time from four days to one day.

The newly-simplified procedure will be put into practice from July 20 to Sept. 20. During the period, both accredited and non-accredited overseas media for the Olympics will enjoy the new procedure.

SACH noted the easier procedure would be used not only for the cultural heritage in Beijing and other co-host cities of the Games, but also in other cities around the country.

As long as the reporting content was Olympic-related, and in accordance with regulations for the security of cultural heritage, the requests could be approved and processed quickly, the SACH said.

In July 2007, the SACH had shortened the processing time from 20 days to four days. Since March, it had sent persons to the Games' organization committee to attend to such requests.

(Xinhua News Agency July 10, 2008)