The Chinese Government has attached great importance to preserving Tibet's historical and cultural heritages and has put heavy investments in Tibet's cultural relic protection.

The Chinese Government has planned to invest 330 million yuan (US$40 million) in three major cultural relic protection and maintenance projects for Potala Palace, Norbulingka and Sakya Monastery, of which 190 million yuan has been disbursed to date. These efforts have effectively protected Tibet's historical and cultural heritages which came into existence in the past 1,000 years.

As one of the regions teeming with historical and cultural heritages in China, Tibet is home to over 2,000 cultural relics of various types. The Central Government always pays close attention to Tibet's cultural relic protection. It commenced the first-phase maintenance project for Potala Palace with 53 million yuan of investment from the late 1980's to the early 1990's. Afterwards it spent 330 million yuan on protection and maintenance of three major cultural relics in Tibet. By the end of 2003, the Chinese Government had put over 600 million yuan in protecting Tibet's cultural relics.

Nyima Tsering, head of the Cultural Relic Bureau of Tibet, announced that in the coming five years, Tibet will implement six key cultural relic protection projects to promote all-around cultural relic protection, including the protection project for ten major cultural relics, the cultural relic census around Tibet, the cultural relic archiving and database construction project, the construction of cultural relic security system, the investigation and protection of significant historical and revolutionary cultural relics, and the investigation and protection of cultural relics in border areas.