BEIJING, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Chinese museums need to tap deeper into the cultural and creative products market, the Guangming Daily reported.

These products need to better feature the cultural characteristics of their respective museums and not be limited to common items such as refrigerator magnets, notebooks and cup holders, the newspaper said.

Ouyang Hui, the curator of the Natural History Museum of Chongqing municipality, was quoted as saying that museums should dig deeper into their collections to come up with their own cultural characteristics.

"They can also cooperate with businesses and exploit each other's advantages," he said.

The report cited the Suzhou Museum in Jiangsu Province as a positive example of developing unique cultural and creative products such as cookies and seeds.

"In addition to developing products on our own, we have cooperated with enterprises to design products and expand sales channels," said Jiang Han, who is in charge of developing such products at the Suzhou Museum.

China issued a document in 2016 to encourage museums to develop cultural and creative products to promote the country's traditional culture.

Data from the Chinese Tourism Academy showed in the past three years, the number of visitors to museums surged by 100 million each year. Enditem