(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-03 19:14

SHENZHEN  -- A museum in the southern boom city of Shenzhen, a pioneer of China's economic reform launched 30 years ago, is soliciting items to reflect its growth.

The newly-renovated Shenzhen Museum is appealing for donations in 12 categories. These range from documents, photos, books, factory name tablets to household articles in preparation for the exhibition "The history of reform and opening-up in Shenzhen".

"We want anything that is able to reflect the changes of the society, the political environment, the economic growth and the development of the city over the past three decades," Chen Wei, head of the city's culture bureau told a press conference on Monday.

"We also need exhibits related to how the city attracted foreign investment in the early 1980s."

To date, the museum has collected 2,150 objects, 9,580 pictures and 246 copies of documents for the December exhibit. They include the first stock certificate issued after the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, the registry of the city's first group of blood donors and a contract of Shenzhen's first joint-venture.

The exhibit will also pay tribute to Deng Xiaoping, the chief architecture of China's reform and opening up. The museum has the barrel and shovel the late leader used for a tree-planting ceremony during his visit to the city in 1992.

Located in the southern coastal area of Guangdong Province across the border from Hong Kong, Shenzhen is regarded as a successful symbol of the country's economic reform led by Deng.

The reform and opening policies soon lifted Shenzhen from poverty and backwardness to one of the country's fastest-growing cities.

The city's gross domestic product (GDP) increased to 680 billion yuan (95.7 billion US dollars) in 2007 from 200 million yuan in 1979.