The National Theatre of Somalia is located in central Mogadishu, Somalia. It opened in 1967, and served as an important cultural landmark in the national capital. The institution closed down after the start of the civil war in the early 1990s, but was later intermittently renovated by the local authorities. In 2013, the Somali and Chinese governments signed an official cooperation agreement as part of a five-year national recovery plan in Somalia that will see the Chinese authorities reconstruct several major infrastructural landmarks in Mogadishu and elsewhere, including the National Theatre.