HE Mr Huang Huaguang, the Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to Tonga handed over $40,414 worth of digitizing equipment and a video camera to Siale 'Ataongo Puloka, the Deputy Private Secretary to the King of Tonga on 12 December.

The digitizing equipment and the video camera are part of a $80,000 grant from the PRC to strengthen the capacity of the Tonga Traditional Committee and to safeguard historical data.

The second part of this assistance program, valued at $39,586, to be implemented later, will involve the procurement of a server for the storage of the digitized materials, and making them accessible online.

Ms Tu'ilokomana Tuita, who lead a team that is preparing the Royal Archives for digitization was very thankful for the program to safe-guard the royal family's historical materials. Some of the materials that they have gathered so far go back as far as the early 1800s.

Tu'ilokomana admitted that there was a bit of work to do to gather the materials together, but at the same time very thankful that work had begun to preserve these very important historical documents.

Siale, the Interim Head of the Royal Archives, was optimistic that by the Coronation in July next years a substantial amount of the Royal Archives, and materials from the Tonga Traditional Committee should be accessible online.