A Beijing Olympics official said on Friday that to host the Games in a frugal way is the principle of the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 29th Olympic Games (BOCOG).
"We will ensure the balance income and expenditure for the Games and strive to make income slightly more than expenditure," said Shen Yuyun, deputy director of Finance Department of the BOCOG, at a press conference in the Main Press Center.
Shen said the budget for the Games operation changed three times. "Originally our budget was US$1.625 billion when we applied for hosting the Games. Now the final budget is more than US$2 billion, which has been approved by the International Olympic Committee."
Strict procedures are introduced for approving expenditures, especially large sums of expenditure. "We have a large-sum expenditure assessment team, which consists of staff in the BOCOG's five departments, such as finance, auditing and personnel. Any expenditure up to 1 million yuan has to be assessed and approved by the team," the official said.
Liu Zhi, spokesman for the Beijing Olympics, briefed journalists on the investment in building sports venues.
The investment in building competing venues is expected to be no more than 13 billion yuan, 50 percent of which comes from central and local financial coffers, while other 50 percent from social donations.
"The money was used for building 12 new venues and eight temporary venues, upgrading 11 venues and building 45 independent training venues. Six affiliated facilities, such as the Olympic village, media villages, National Convention Center, Multi-purpose TV tower, Olympic park and the Digital Beijing Building were self-financed by enterprises which will decide how to use them after the Games," said Liu.
For instance, the Olympic village has been sold out in advance as commercial housing, and buyers can move in soon after the Games.
"To implement the principle of holding the Games in a frugal way, we fully use the current sports facility resources. As long as the Olympic venues can be qualified through transformation or expansion, we don't build new ones. If temporary venues can meet the demand, we don't build permanent ones," Liu said.
In a bid to ensure that the Olympic venues are fully used after the Games, six sports venues are built in universities.
