The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic GamesAugust 8-24 2008
Wall Street Journal
You mentioned earlier that the Games has brought additional prosperity of the urban Chinese and rural Chinese. I am wondering if you think it will bring more benefit to the people in Beijing than to the people in rural areas. According to the national bureau statistics, in 2007, the income of the urban Chinese person was 3.3 times as much as persons in the rural areas. But in 2001, it was just 2.9 times as much. Has there actually been a growing discrepancy between the incomes of the people in the cities and in the rural areas since Beijing got the rights to host the Games. Thank you.
Wang Haiping
During the past, we have been implementing a comprehensive policy for development. One most important aspect of it is the coordination development of the urban and the rural areas.
These years, through the transfer of the government investment to developing the infrastructure in the rural areas which included expanding and intensifying the public facilities through intensifying the support to the rural areas in terms of the production as well as other areas, the agricultural development in the suburbs has been improved and thus the job opportunities have been improved and income has been on rise this year. The net income for the rural people, as we said, has increased 9.1%. That is including the price rise that represents the real increase.
According to the basic economic rules, the rural incomes including the price rise can reach 1% increase each year, that itself is a very significant one. They do have many countries and areas with some improvement. The increase of the income for the rural people is because the rural people are hard working, thus increased their income. At the same time, it is also because of the support or the policy support from the central government which goes all the way to supporting the agricultural activities. When it comes to the policies for the rural people these years, we have been implementing the policies emphasizing on more input as opposed to asking too much from the rural people.
Therefore, we have seen the net increase of income of 9.1% of the rural people. The expenses have been reduced as well. For example, we led the whole country in implementing comprehensive compulsory basic education for the rural people. We have been aware of the education expenses and enrollment fees. In fact, the rural people in terms of the expenditure, has been reduced and the incomes rise. As a result, the rural people have seen an increase in income and reduction in expenditure. Therefore the net effect is certainly not depicted by that 9.1% increase. I guess I should say that the actual effect or benefit is more than this 9.1% increase. Another thing I would like to share with you is, although the 9.1% increase is indeed a big figure, as said, compared to the increase of disposable income of the urban people, it is still lagging behind and in that sense the reality in this country about the urban and the rural areas, and the lifestyle of the rural as compared to the lifestyles of the urban people can show a great disparity. To remove the income gap takes time. That is the reality in China especially. Beijing including the other economically developed countries faced the same problem just as well. Therefore, what I want to tell you is to do away with this disparity to ensure equal progress takes time.
What I want to share with you as well is that such a disparity has nothing to do with the Games. To be fair, the Games stimulates the development of the rural areas leading to the income and the rise of income. It's wrong to say that the Games have slimed down the rise of the income. With the figures we have at hand, the economic development has not been affected by the Games. In fact, the economic development has been influenced by the Games and has been getting faster and faster.
World Journal
As an overseas Chinese, even in a foreign environment we are interested in cost-efficiency. So when I see the topic about cost-efficiency in the Olympic Games, I would like to know the data and the facts. Do you have a comparison after spending 2 billion dollars as compared to the other western countries hosting the Olympic Games, what will that be?
Zhang Baoyu
The Olympic Games has a budget constraint from the very beginning layout to the implementation. We actually have a very effective bidding process and budget restriction. From the overall as Mr. Liu mentioned, we actually controlled the budget at 13 billion RMB (1.91 billion U.S. dollars). So we feel that comparatively speaking, we are cost efficient. But we didn't make specific comparisons yet.
Wang Haiping
Mr. Liu mentioned that during the preparation of the Olympic Games, the city planning of the city including the transportation construction, water resources construction and the energy infrastructure construction, we actually put in 280 billion RMB (about 41.2 U. S. dollars). So when we look at 280 billion RMB, is it more or less? Did we spend more or less? We can't just look at it from the figures alone. From the economic point of view, you also have to consider the exchange rate which involves the non-economical factors such as politics, cultures and various countries spending levels, industries and technology levels. These factors can play important role in the exchange rate. In the demand and supply of the currency, the factor of the market is also involved. So when talking about the 280 billion RMB, if you convert it in dollars by the exchange rate, and then come up with the conclusion about how much money you will need to construct the venues in other places and the US, I don't think it's very reasonable.
So when you look at the Beijing infrastructure construction, this type of infrastructure construction is what Beijing wanted to do to benefit the residents and the citizens of the whole nations or the whole world. It has nothing to do with the hosting of the Olympic Games. Even if we did not host the Olympic Games, we will still do this. We will still improve the streets, etc. So this is what we need to do in city planning and development.
We can only say that the preparation of the Olympic Games has speeded up our pace of city planning development and construction. This is the benefit that the Olympic Games has brought us.
Thirdly, when concentrating on 280 billion RMB, you should also be concerned on what have we done on the 280 billion RMB. To judge it is thrifty or not, you can not just look at the expenditure figures but you have to look at the kind of the scale of construction we have. That means the input and the output has to be in proportion.
You have to know if it's effective or cost effective. Then you will know if it's cost efficient or not. So what have we done with the 280 billion RMB? First of all, we have constructed the new terminal 3, the Capital Airport. This is not only a good service for the Olympic Games. It will increase the capacity of Beijing to develop. It also increased the exchange capability between Beijing and the outside world. We also improved the railway hubs and the new railroad lines. These include the Beijing subway stations improvement, the Beijing and Tianjin expressway, other highway improvement and other Beijing improvement. This kind of railway improvement increased the ability for Beijing to have economic interaction with the outside world. Another one is the express way improvement. In the past years, we increased 578 km of express way, with a total input of 54.9 billion RMB (about 8.07 billion U.S. dollars). Basically, Beijing has fulfilled the goal that all regions would be reached by a highway. This realized the overall city development and provided transportation capability for Beijing. We have a very good technology and transportation. We have input 146 km of the railway, for example, Line 13, Batong Line, Line 5, Line 10 (Phase 1), the Olympic Extension and the Airport Express Line. We also improved and renovated Line 1 and Line 2, with a total cost of 49.7 billion RMB (about 7.31 billion U.S. dollars).
As we are improving the transportation, we also did the water resource improvement and we improve the river way. We have also established 11 reclaimed water treatment works with the productivity of 525,000 cubic meters per day. We actually constructed the 9 sewage treatment works and were able to treat 92% of sewage. We also improved the garbage treatment center. The rate of urban garbage innocuous treatment reaches to 99.9%, and 78.6% in rurual areas. We also did the energy improvement and infrastructure. We constructed 5 new transformer stations. We increased 20 more transformer stations for 220 kilovolt and increased it from 28 to 48 stations. As for transformer stations of 110 kilovolt, it increased 111. In total, we increased it to 239 stations from 128 stations. We can satisfy the needs of Beijing residents. So when we look at the figures of 280 billion RMB, we not only look at the figure but how it was spent. It's truly cost-efficient. In lot of places, even if you spend this amount, you won't achieve this effect.
Voice of Strait Broadcasting Station
The opening ceremony is going to start so we have put more in capital. The earthquake in May will definitely damage the economy. So I would like to know about the turn in the capital input and do you have any measure for cost efficiency?
Shen Yuyun
In regard to the cost efficiency of the Olympic Games, it was the guideline made by the State Council for BOCOG. From a few years ago to present and even after, we definitely are going to implement these guidelines. You mentioned about the earthquake zone, both the IOC and BOCOG has taken out a part of the capital for the earthquake relief to show our care and help the people in the earthquake zone. For the expenses of our operated budget, we included the strict review procedure. Through all these different regulation, we restricted all the expenditures and within the budget we review all the big scale expenses. With the bidding process, we also use the market expert as well as the contract and negotiations. All these measures aimed at controlling the budget in order to implement the cost efficient Olympic Games. We also have supervising committee which monitors and supervises our budget. Recently, we have a hearing on this project. The Finance Department of BOCOG reported to this committee.
As for the contingency capital and the possible expenses during the Games, we have prepared the following measures. We have a supervision department and finance department to call an intra-department meeting to emphasize the guidelines of the cost-efficiency of the Olympic Games. From the beginning to now, we strictly follow the budget to restrict all the expenditure. If it is a last-minute expense, it should have a firm goal. All of expenses have to follow the procedures, especially the review procedure. Through the teams of the different venues, after they have been established, we gave them same demand and request. We have to strictly follow the procedure for the entire budget for the Games. We also want to enhance the accountability of the head of all the teams in different venues. The expenses have to be in accordance with the regulations, and the expenses need to be audited.
China Youth Daily
Mr. Liu mentioned the Wukesong Indoor Stadium that has made adjustment. I would like to know how they actually cancelled some of the facilities of the stadium, could you please cite some examples on the canceling of some unreasonable expense?
Zhang Nongke
Yes. You mentioned Wukesong Indoor Stadium and the reduction of the square meters. When we submitted the principle of the cost effective Olympic Games, we had several plans. When we were trying to optimize these plans, the designed plan of Wukesong Indoor Stadium was reduced from 119,000 square meters to 63,000 square meters. And the steel used was reduced from 50,000 tons to 4000 tons. So the cost of the construction has been reduced. We saved about 0.5 billion RMB (about 73,529,412 U.S. dollars).
Shen Yuyun
I mentioned earlier, we have implemented the whole financial system to review the expenses and we review them during the whole biding process. In order to control the unreasonable expenses, for example, there was a project of 'big project budget control measure'. That is, for any project over 1 million RMB (about 147,059 U.S. dollars), an assessment committee has to do a review of it. This committee has financial department, supervision department and personnel department and other departments, administration department. The supervision to check out if there is any unnecessary spent of the budget. Besides the committee that is formed of five different departments, there is another assessment committee. They will actually take a look at the market rate. And they will do very strict reviewing. Through this kind of review process, after all these yrs, we find it very effective. Since all the projects over 1 million RMB will go through this project, my estimation is that we saved 10% to 15% because of this measure.
Beijing Youth Daily
I am from Beijing Youth Daily. After the successful bidding of the Olympic Games, the BOCOG has a budget of revenue estimated about 1.6 billion. But right now with the operated funding, the capital is about 2 billion. I'm just wondering if you increased the budget or have something profit left?
Shen Yuyun
Mr Liu has said about this. After adjusting the budget several times, our budget was about 2 billion U.S. dollars and we think we will still have some profit. This budget has been approved by IOC.
Southridge Daily
I am from Southridge Daily. I wonder if the figure of 13 billion for the arenas includes the new training facilities, like the Paralympic training center outside Beijing. If not, how much do they cost?
Zhang Baoyu
We have a controlled budget of 13 billion and it does not include Paralympic venues.
South China Morning Post
My question is about the after-Games utilization of the venues. All the host cities faced this question. How are we going to solve this? What are the challenges we are facing and will be facing? There are about 4 or 5 newly-built venues such as the National Aquatics Center and the Bird's Nest (National Stadium). I wonder that in order to develop these venues, what kind of measures you have taken.
Zhang Nongke
So you are talking about the after-Games utilization of the venues. This is what we are concerned since we won the bid of 2008 Olympic Games. This is also the core question we are going to look at as we were planning. As you mentioned, the other host nations also faced the similar challenges. So we thought about this problem when we were planning. I think you have noticed that some of the venues are inside the universities and some facilities were in the areas that do not have the sports facilities. Many people thought that the venues were going to be a burden but for us. We are going to sell them to the private enterprises so that we can cover the cost. They have a pretty good idea of the utilization after the Games. This is the very first time for a city to make the post-Games utilization of these venues. For example, the competition range of table tennis is in Peking University, badminton and rhythmic gymnastics are in Beijing University of Technology, and taekwondo and judo are in University of Science and Technology Beijing. All these sports facilities will be part of the university and benefit both the university and the communities. It also shows the spirit of participation and of the common people.
CRI
I would like to ask during the cost efficiency Olympics, how we guarantee the quality of the venues?
Zhang Baoyu
Thank you very much for your question. The quality of the venue is also a focus of the media and everyone. We stressed safety, energy, cost, etc. Energy conservation is very important and we used the least to get the best quality. We also have the quality assurance system, and we have some accountability measures. This is all in our quality assurance system. We also guarantee the materials of all the venues. They are qualified to build the venues. During the construction, we have all these measures in place. After the construction, we also have to check the quality. For the total quality in the final stage, we have quality assurance to check the quality and if it is not qualified, we will demand a correction and after the correction and then we check again to see if it is up to standard and then we pass.
Liu Zhi
This is the end of the press conference. Thank you very much for attending. We thank the representatives on the stage. Thank you.
| [Previous][1][2] |
