There are four museums affiliated with the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage – the Tokyo National Museum, Kyoto National Museum, Nara National Museum, and Kyushu National Museum. In addition, there are two national research institutes – The Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties and The Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties. These museums and research institutes have many exceptional works of art and archeological artifacts in their collections that are essential for understanding Japanese history, traditions, and culture. Japan’s national museums and research institutes for cultural properties have a long tradition of loaning these works to other museums to give audiences around the world a chance to learn about Japanese culture and history as they enjoy these works.
The Loan Promotion Section makes use of cultural properties related to each region from the collections in these national museums and research institutes for exhibitions, which contributes to regional development and helps to promote tourism. To facilitate this, the CPCP oversees its "Loan Promotion Project," in which it pays the transportation costs and other associated expenses for these institutions to loan their collections to museums in every region of Japan. Through this program, we aim to promote the appeal and value of important cultural properties and to hand them down to succeeding generations.
Currently, only organizations located in Japan are eligible to participate in CPCP's loaning and lending programs.