Singapore's Minister for Information and the Arts Lee Yock Suan said the scheme would encourage potential donors and benefit the state's culture, the Straits Times said.

"Our national heritage collection is still very young and there is much scope for further additions and acquisitions," he said at the launch of the Heritage Conservation Centre.

The centre is southeast Asia's first artefact repository and conservation facility, and houses 90,000 articles from Southeast Asia, including 150,000-year-old chopping tools discovered on the Indonesian island of Java.