The World Heritage Committee will consider two Chinese sites for inclusion on the World Heritage List during its annual meeting slated for July 8 to 18 in Vilnius, Lithuania, a Chinese official said Wednesday.

The two Chinese sites are the Great Panda habitat in southwest China's Sichuan Province and the ruins of the Shang Dynasty (16th to 11th Centuries B.C.) capital in Anyang city, central China's Henan Province, according to Tian Xiaogang, secretary general of the National Commission of China for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Tian said it was impossible to forecast the results of the meeting, but added that the UNESCO experts had basically agreed to the inclusion of the two Chinese sites during the preliminary assessment.

"We look forward to the best results," he said.

The Vilnius meeting will review 35 other applications, according to the UNESCO official website.

Tian said the first item on the agenda was a review of reports on the protection existing world heritage sites by their managers.

Three Chinese world heritage sites -- the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and the Heavenly Temple -- all in Beijing, would have reports on protection work, he said.

China has 31 world heritage sites, second to only Spain and Italy.

Source: Xinhua