BEIJING, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- The project of reproducing the damaged Imperial Garden -- Beijing's Old Summer Palace or Yuanmingyuan Park -- in east China's Zhejiang Province, started fund-raising efforts on Monday, according to information from a press conference held here.

    The money was being collected by the Yuanmingyuan Replica Construction Fund under the Zhejiang Foundation for the Chinese Cultural Development and China Film Foundation, said Xu Wenrong, the project advocator and Council for cooperative creating, common holding, joint enriching and mutual benefits chairman.

    The council has registered the Hong Kong-based China Yuanmingyuan Society Foundation to receive overseas donations.

    So far, 1.56 billion yuan (217.7 million U.S. dollars) had been raised for the reconstruction. Another 124 million yuan was collected by the Zhejiang Foundation for Chinese Cultural Development for reproducing the relic pieces, Xu said.

    "The money were raised from the public before we started promoting the project, which proves the great interest and enthusiasm of the public."

    The project was expected to cost 20 billion yuan, of which, 7 billion will be used for infrastructure construction and the rest for collection and duplications of the relic pieces.

    The construction of a same-sized replica would start this year in Hengdian Town, Zhejiang Province

    The 400-hectare duplicate park will be built west of the town at a Hollywood-like film studio base.

    The construction will be complete in five years.

    However, construction of the Yuanmingyuan replica has been met with fierce public criticism since it was announced in September 2006.

    "The Yuanmingyuan took 150 years to build. It can not be recreated in five or 10 years," said Ruan Yisan, director of the State Institute of Famous Historical and Cultural Cities with the Shanghai-based Tongji University.

    "It would be of greater value to spend the money on ancient cultural heritage sites that are in dire need of protection or build some modern mansions blended with the cream of ancient Chinese architecture," he said.