BEIJING — China will step up the protection and utilization of grotto temples, aiming to eliminate major dangers at these heritage sites by 2022, according to the National Cultural Heritage Administration.

The conservation of grotto temples will see significant improvements by 2025, with enhanced security capabilities, according to a five-year plan for the 2021-2025 period issued by the administration.

The plan proposes to set up a national digital platform for grotto temple resources, with particular emphasis on the protection of small- and medium-sized grotto temples.

It also called for further improvements to the joint long-term mechanism for combating crimes involving cultural relics and recommended that the theft of cultural relics in caves should be included in the national key work of combating cultural relics crimes.

Efforts will be made to retrieve stolen and lost grotto temple cultural relics, according to the plan.

At present, there are still some prominent problems in the protection of grotto temples in China, such as the protection work involving small- and medium-sized cave temples is lagging behind.