Both Chinese and international investors will be on an equal footing to win contracts for the 14 billion U.S dollar projects for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games through an open bidding system, official said Tuesday.
Ping Yongquan, former director of the city planning bureau of Beijing, told Xinhua that the municipal authorities and relevant central government departments are making preliminary preparations for invitations for global bidding.
He said that the rules of the open bidding will be finally decided by the Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee (BOGOC) to be set up by the end of this year.
Under Beijing's plan for the 2008 Olympic Games, the BOGOC will contribute 40 million U.S. dollars to the construction of the 480 million U.S. dollar Olympic Village and 100 million dollars to that of the 1.6 billion dollar venues.
The remaining part will be covered by the government and Chinese and foreign institutional and individual investors, who will also invest 3.6 billion U.S. dollars in building roads and railways and 8.6 billion U.S. dollars in environmental protection projects.
Mayor Liu Qi said that in order to stage the best ever Olympic Games in history in 2008, Beijing will build the most advanced venues and facilities in the world.
Beijing has planned 32 competition venues for the 2008 Olympics. Among them, 13 have been completed and will be renovated. The other 19 are yet to be built.
Ping, also deputy secretary-general of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Bid Committee (BOBICO), said that Beijing will invite global bids for the design, construction and management of most of the Olympic venues and the Olympic Village so as to ensure that they are up to top standards in all aspects.
He said Beijing is considering several options for utilizing international resources to build and operate the sports venues, including joint ventures, technological cooperation and transfer of management rights.
BOBICO experts have already traveled to Australia, North America, Europe and Malaysia to learn foreign experience in management of the whole process from design, construction to operation of sports venues.
Post-Olympics utilization will be taken into account in the design of the Olympic venues and the Olympic Village, he said.
In order to stage an excellent Olympic Games, Beijing will build more than 100 kilometers of metro railways and complete 20 major environmental protection projects in the next few years, including replacing coal with natural gas, car emission control, afforestation, relocation of polluting industries, sewage treatment and garbage recycling.
Local observers say that the projects directly related to the Olympics account for only a small part of the business opportunities Beijing will offer to overseas investors in the coming few years.
As Beijing is planning to complete the construction of all Olympic venues by 2006, investment in urban development, telecommunications, transport and public utilities will total 190 billion yuan (23 billion U.S. dollars) in the next five years.
According to national and municipal regulations for government procurement, Beijing has to offer a large part of the projects for public bidding.
Ping said that so far, a number of international companies have contacted the BOBICO to express their interest in participating in the Olympics-related construction projects. The companies are mainly from Australia, the United States and Europe.
(Xinhua 07/24/2001)
