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Bronze heads are priceless: buyer

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Josephine Ma

The Chinese company that bought three looted cultural relics at auction in Hong Kong earlier this year says it will not sell the items regardless of how much it might be offered.

The three bronze heads bought by state-owned China Poly Group have arrived in Shenzhen for an eight-day exhibition before being placed on permanent display in the group's corporate museum in Beijing.

The bronze heads of a monkey, an ox and a tiger were bought by the group - a former PLA commercial arm with close ties to late patriarch Deng Xiaoping's family - for $30 million at two auctions in Hong Kong in April and May.

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The highly publicised purchases were described by China's official media as a patriotic move to restore national pride after an exodus of looted cultural relics over more than a century.

Before the exhibition in Shenzhen Museum opened, the relics were taken to the sales office of a new residential property owned by Poly Group and displayed against the backdrop of a huge advertisement for the property.

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When asked if the exhibition would help boost property sales, the group's general office director Zhang Liansheng agreed the group's efforts to rescue cultural relics from foreigners would help its corporate image.

He said the heads would be kept in the corporate museum together with a collection of more than 150 other cultural relics.

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