BEIJING,  (Reuters Life!) – China’s culture minister  took aim at the country’s booming broadcasting and publishing  industries yesterday, saying much of what they produced was  “vulgar” and “kitsch”.

“We publish more than 300,000 books every year, but how  many of them could be compared with the scriptures inherited  from our ancestors?” Cai Wu told state news agency Xinhua.

“We produce some 400 movies and hundreds of TV drama  programmes each year, but how many of them will be recognised  as classics?”

Too many Chinese publications fill their pages with “gossip  and sensational stories that advocate money worship and  consumerism”, the report paraphrased him as saying.

“Vulgar publications” were an unfortunate result of China’s  market-oriented economic reforms, “where a profit-oriented  system passed off cheap entertainment as culture”, Cai added.

Local governments, he said, were partly to blame by  spending money on vanity projects such as flashy new buildings,  instead of basic cultural facilities.

“Some local governments and officials have neglected or  ignored socialist cultural construction,” Cai told Xinhua.

“In today’s world, a country’s culture and economy are  inseparable. A government must pay more attention to culture  and originality if it wants to improve the quality of economic  development.”