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Olympics will reveal the true face of China
(BOCOG)
Updated: 2007-02-01 11:07
The Beijing Olympic Games will accelerate the integration of China into the international community and make more people aware of the changes that have taken place here in the past 20 years under its policy of reform and opening up to the world, a BOCOG official said Tuesday.
In an interview with journalists from Agencia EFE, BBC, Kyodo News, Sidney Morning Herald, Evening Standard and a French China expert, BOCOG Executive Vice-President and Secretary-General Wang Wei talked in length on Olympic preparations and answered their questions.
Referring to the Games' marketing program and budget, he said satisfactory progress has been made in this respect, indicating that enough funds have been secured. However, he said, BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad) will always abide by the principle of austerity. "The expenditure of the Beijing Games will not surpass that of the Athens Games," he said.
Trying to dispel journalists' worries about traffic jams during the Olympic Games, Wang said Beijing will open up a special lane for Games-time Olympic vehicles carrying the athletes and other people. At the same time, Beijing will step up the construction of infrastructure and encourage commuters to use public transport which should help ease to relieve traffic congestion in the city.
Updating them on the preparations for the Games' opening and closing ceremonies and the Olympic Torch Relay, he said a team of talented artists and experts is working on the schemes of the ceremonies, integrating the Chinese culture with the Olympic spirit, while the people to be involved in the Torch Relay for the Mt. Qongmalangma (or Mount Everest) route are being trained.
The official reiterated that BOCOG will earnestly implement the regulations issued by the State Council on the reporting activities in China of foreign journalists before and during the Beijing Olympic Games, which allow journalists to conduct interviews as long as they obtain consent of the interviewees. "We will provide them with quality services, " Wang stressed.
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