"Museums in China have made rapid progress in the past few years and achieved great improvement in many aspects including our facilities, talents and so on," Chu Xiaobo, director of Shanghai Museum, told the media on Tuesday. "We decided to invite colleagues from abroad to witness our development, and meanwhile we are aware of the big gap between us and the top-notch museums in the world, and that's the direction we are heading to in our hard work for the future."

The communications with overseas colleagues and counterparts is of vital importance, he said. "I'm sure the conference will bring up new ideas, methods and ways of work, which will lead the direction of development of museums in the future."

Today the world is faced with more complexities and challenges, such as war, cultural differences and technology, so "I think it is important that leaders (in the international museum community) have a sounding board so that we can come together to think about complicated topics and find power together to think about how we can best serve the worlds," said Jameson Kelleher, chief operating officer of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States.