Olympic Bid Officials Reiterate Environmental CauseBeijing Olympic bid campaigners promised a Green Olympics to an International Olympic Committee (IOC) team evaluating the city's capabilities for hosting the 2008 Games on Thursday, the second day of the IOC Commission's four-day tour.In this morning's presentations, the IOC inspectors heard Beijing's report on environmental protection and meteorology while a top official from the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Bidding Committee (BOBICO) reiterated their "particular concerns" on the environmental issues at the evening's news conference. Specific measures named "Green Olympics Action of Plan" have been taken to address Beijing's environmental problems, and they have been written into the city's official Tenth Five-year Plan, Jiang Xiaoyu, vice-president of BOBICO said. Planners with the municipal government have earmarked more than US$12 billion for the environmental purpose, aiming to qualify Beijing as a world-class metropolis in the terms of air and drinking water quality, Jiang said. Under the Tenth Five-year Plan, by the year of 2005, the city's sewage processing capacity will increase from one million tons per day to a daily amount of 2.6 million tons; the efficiency of the life garbage treatment will have risen from 40 percent to 90 percent ; and the public green area per capita will increase from 8.4 square meters to 15 square meters. |
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