Jan 13
Final accounting of Beijing Olympics to be released
The final accounting of revenues and expenditures for the Beijing Olympic Games is expected to be released in the first half of the year.
Liu Jingmin, Vice Mayor of Beijing and Executive Vice President of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), said on January 10 that, as auditing for the Olympic Games’ various expenditures has yet to commence, the release of the final accounting will not be possible for the upcoming “two Conferences”¡ª¡ªthe Beijing People’s Congress and the Beijing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), nor will it be released for the National People’s Congress (NPC) and CPPCC in March. But it is likely that the audited numbers will be announced within the first half of the year.
According to the financial budget created during Beijing’s bid for the 2008 Olympics, spending for the Beijing Games was estimated at US $1.609 billion, while revenue were expected to be US $1.625 billion, with a profit of approximately US $16 million. Subsequently, as spending in security increased and the exchange rate of the RMB fluctuated, the second version of the budget had adjusted expenditures to over US $2 billion. Even so, the BOCOG has reiterated that the operation costs of the Games would not only be lower than the Athens Games of US $2.4 billion, but could also realize the goal of turning a small profit.
According to previous media reports, total spending on venue construction for the Beijing Games was kept under 13 billion yuan. The investment boosted Beijing’s GDP by 1.3% over the past five years. To guarantee the good operation of the Games, projects such as supplementary facilities, expanding transportation networks and building environmental facilities, which totaled around 134.9 billion yuan, were injected into urban planning. In addition, approximately 280 billion yuan were spent on urban construction projects that started ahead of schedule due to the Olympics.
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