The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has decided at an executive board meeting called on Feb 17 that it is going to look into qualifications of cities to bid for the 2008 Olympic Games on August 28- 29 this year.

IOC will call a meeting to formally start the bid acceptance procedure in Lausanne on Feb. 24 at which it will meet with representatives of ten cities that have had applications submitted for hosting the 2008 Olympic Games.

According to reformed IOC program established after the bribery scandal of Salt Lake City's winning bid for the 2002 Winter Games, all the interested cities will have to go through a strict bid examination procedure to check out their organizational capacity. No city will become a candidate until it passes the procedure. The IOC will go for a vote in Moscow July 2001 to resolve the city to host the Games of the 29th Olympiad in 2008.