[Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

According to Shan Jixiang, the director of the Palace Museum, the donation will help better preserve its huge collection and develop more exhibitions.

About 10 percent of the annual financial allocation to the museum was cut in 2018, Shan said, which forced it to look for other sources of money. 

There are more than 1.86 million cultural relics currently housed in the Palace Museum, and Shan expects about 8 percent of them to be displayed by the end of this year. The number will rise to 12 percent by the end of 2020.