The Committee,
- Having examined document LHE/23/18.COM/7.a,
- Recalling Chapter V of the Operational Directives and its Decisions COM 5.3, 12.COM 8.c.7 and 16.COM 7.a.13,
- Expresses its appreciation to China for submitting, on time, its third report on the status of the element ‘Wooden movable-type printing of China’, inscribed in 2010 on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding;
- Takes note of the efforts undertaken by the State Party to safeguard the element, in particular by subsidizing bearers to transmit the element to apprentices, providing facilities and engaging educational institutions in its transmission, exploring new formats for applying traditional knowledge and skills, advancing research, promoting the element, and engaging communities and their organizations in its safeguarding and monitoring;
- Encourages the State Party to pursue its efforts to transmit the element to younger generations through learning and apprenticeships, to support bearers and apprentices, to explore possibilities to adapt the element to present contexts while strengthening the continuity of its cultural significance and associated genealogical and ceremonial traditions, and to advance documentation and research on the element;
- Recalls the importance of obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of bearers regarding the documentation of their practice and its further dissemination;
- Invites the State Party to continue ensuring the participation of the bearers, communities and organizations concerned in developing and implementing safeguarding measures;
- Notes the planned decrease in subsidies for bearers of the element, and further encourages the State Party to consider financial possibilities to sustain the master-apprentice transmission of the element;
- Requests that the Secretariat inform the State Party at least nine months prior to the next deadline about the required submission of its next report on the status of this element.