SHANGHAI, May 30 -- THE main city in the Zhoushan archipelago, Zhejiang Province, was yesterday named the tourist city of the 10th Shanghai International Film Festival.

The city, also called Zhoushan, will hold film shows and cater as an island film base, said Tang Lijun, an official with the film festival's organizing committee.

The Zhoushan government is keen to make the city a film and television production base.

The archipelago, about 150 kilometers to the southeast of Shanghai, already has one such base on Taohua Island.

Zhoushan's tourism bureau said yesterday it has plans afoot for a triumvirate of festivals this year.

The bureau will launch a seafood festival next month and the first domestic seafood cooking competition will be held in Beijing, Shanghai and Zhoushan on June 7.

A sand sculpture festival will be held from September 15 to October 7 in Zhujiajian, east of Zhoushan.

This year's contest will have an Olympic theme and more than 30 leading sculptors from 10 countries will take part.

Zhoushan will also hold a Nanhai Kwan-yin cultural festival in Putuoshan in November to celebrate the Goddess of Mercy.

East of Hangzhou Bay and about a 10-minute boat ride from Zhoushan, Putuoshan is known as "Buddhist Paradise on the Sea." It is one of China's four sacred mountains and pilgrimage sites.

Millions visit the site to worship Kwan-yin every year, making it one of Buddhism's biggest attractions in China.

With 1,390 islands scattered in the East China Sea, Zhoushan archipelago covers an area of 22,000 square kilometers.