Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), emphasized that the Beijing Olympics had shown a healthy profit and that the stadiums would be utilized effectively after the Games.
Jiang, who is currently attending the annual parliamentary sessions, noted that the post-games utilization of the stadiums has been a top priority and emphasized that all of the 31 Olympic stadiums are operating in different ways.
"We have a plan for the National Stadium. Considering the size of the venue, it will need cooperation from all sides to make it work. But things look promising,"Jiang was quoted as saying.
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"Bird's Nest"has become an iconic tourist destination for visitors. |
Jiang also pointed out that the numbers of tourists attracted to venues like "Bird's Nest"and "Water Cube"during the holidays have surpassed all expectations. The stadiums have become the preferred destination for visitors to Beijing. In addition, Jiang revealed that no decision has yet been made on the question whether to sell the naming rights of the National Stadium.
According to Jiang, there are four tasks remaining for the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG).
The first task is the financial audit and settlement. "Based on our earlier estimates, revenues would be about 1.625 billion US dollars, while costs came in at 1.609 billion US dollars. However, our initial results suggest that the surplus is larger than we had anticipated,"said Jiang.
The second is dealing with remaining goods and materials. Millions of items will be donated or put up for auction. Jiang believes that the ongoing financial crisis will not adversely influence the price of the goods at auction, as the items are all of significant historical worth and their value will not deteriorate.
Personnel placement is the third task. Initially there were about 8,000 people in BOCOG. The vast majority has now been redeployed into new jobs, and some of them have joined the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee.
The final task is writing the summary report. BOCOG is obliged to submit nine reports to the International Olympic Committee. These reports will be written in Chinese and English, and some will also be translated into French.
"We will try to finish this before June,"Jiang concluded.
(China.org.cn by Xiang Bin, March 6, 2009)