Beijing Launches Organizing Committee, Promises Open and Frugal Games

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, December 14, 2001

Beijing Launches Organizing Committee, Promises Open and Frugal Games

Beijing Establish Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad

Five months after its high-flying bidding success, Beijing got down to earth to prepare for a best ever sporting gala by setting up the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 29th Olympic Games (BOCOG) on Thursday.

Chinese Vice Premier Li Lanqing and Chinese Olympic Committee president Yuan Weimin, attended the launch ceremony.

Addressing the ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, Beijing Mayor Liu Qi hailed hosting of the 29th Olympiad as "glorious but challenging" and pledged that the host city would stage the games in an open and economical way.

Liu said that during the seven-year buildup to the Olympic Games, the OCOG would take a receptive approach to adopt international practices in many sectors including infrastructure construction, fund raising and service providing.

"We will enhance the teamwork with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Federations and National Olympic Committees, build on experiences of the previous host cities, take in advice of experts from all directions and enroll talents, local or foreign, into the organizing committee," said Liu.

IOC president Jacques Rogge sent a letter to congratulate on the launch of the organizing committee, expecting Beijing to deliver a successful games seven years later.

"The People's Republic of China has played host to several international sport competitions at all levels and will now, for the first time in history, organize the Olympic Games. There is no doubt therefore over the organizational capacity of China," said Rogge.

"The IOC will provide full cooperation and assistance to the newly-founded Organizing Committee to ensure the success of the Games of the 29th Olympiad in 2008," he added.

Beijing was awarded the top sporting prize in Moscow on July 13 by beating the other four candidate cities including Paris, Toronto, Istanbul and Osaka.

Concurring with the launch of the organizing committee is a Supervision Committee which Liu said is set up to ensure the transparency and fairness during the Olympic preparation.

"Strict regulations and rules on managing assets and finance of the organizing committee will be put in place and strictly enforced," said Liu.

"An independent auditing body will also be established to audit the financial record of the organizing committee."

One of the priorities for the Supervision Commission will be to monitor the infrastructure construction, Liu said.

"We will strictly enforce the governmental regulations on the management of infrastructure construction, standardizing its bidding process and improving the monitoring system," he said.

He also stressed that Beijing organizing committee will stage the Olympiad on the principle of frugality while meeting the requirements for staging the Olympiad.

"The building of Olympic venues should not only meet the demand of the Olympics, but also take into consideration the post-games utilization, and we should make full use of the existing facilities and try to put on some temporary facilities for the games to reduce the cost,"said Liu.

Liu also pledged that the 2008 Olympics will be a grand event "by the people and for the people".

"All ethnic groups in China have chances to participate in the Olympic torch relay, all the people could make their own contribution to the games, and all enterprises at home and abroad have equal chances to join and profit from the Olympic-related infrastructure construction," he said.

The BOCOG is composed of leading officials from Beijing Municipality Government, the State Sports General Administration of China and the Chinese Olympic Committee as well as the Chinese IOC members and athletes representatives.

"We welcome all elite from all directions to join us and try to make the OCOG a team of high quality and high efficiency," said Liu.

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