Nearly 2,500 Chinese archives at and above the county level, or 80 percent of China's total, have opened once confidential government "red-title" documents for public reference, sources at a national archives directors' meeting said in Beijing Wednesday.

China's official documents, usually with the title printed in red, were once restricted only to government officials and seen as "mysterious" by common Chinese.

Shenzhen, a boomtown in south China neighboring Hong Kong, took the lead in opening the documents of the government or Communist Party of China organizations to the public in 2000.

The general public is allowed to go to the document center in the archives to look for information or make inquiries by phone or through the Internet.

Mao Fumin, director of China's State Archives Administration, said such a move helps make better use of official documents, which are opened to the public after being kept as archives for 30 years.

Source: Xinhua