'MOU boosts cultural exchanges between HK, Uzbekistan'

The director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum said he's hoping to bring artefacts and treasures from Uzbekistan to go on exhibit in the city.

Louis Ng made the comments as the museum signed a co-operation agreement with the Islamic Civilization Center of the Central Asian country on Monday.

It's the second Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Hong Kong Palace Museum with an Uzbek cultural institution this year. The first was with the State Museum of History of Uzbekistan.

In conjunction with the signing ceremony, the museum hosted a public talk titled "Window into Uzbekistan's Heritage - Islamic Civilization Center", which explored the country's architectural and cultural wonders.

This marked the first cultural exchange event in Hong Kong between the two sides since Chief Executive John Lee visited Uzbekistan last month.

"We would like to present Islamic culture in Hong Kong, following the very successful carpet exhibition and also the V&A Mughal exhibition presented in the last two years," Ng said.

"Secondly, we would like to [take] our collections on Chinese art and culture to Uzbekistan... there's a very, very strong demand for the people there to understand more Chinese art and culture in a more comprehensive way."

He highlighted the role played by the Islamic Civilization Center in Uzbekistan.

"In the meantime, we'd like to present our own collection on Chinese art and history in the Islamic Civilization Center.

"I think that the Islamic Civilization Center has a world vision that would like to embrace different cultures [and] the heritage of the world in the centre, and definitely Hong Kong can play an important role to [take] our collection on Chinese art and culture there."

Edited by Edmond Fong ...