BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Following seven years of preparation,
Beijing is able to honor its Olympic commitment to the international community, according to the city's Communist Party chief.
Liu Qi, also the
Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) president, made the remark in an interview with the People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party official newspaper.
He attributed the confidence to the strong leadership of the Party and the State Council, the support of Chinese both at home and abroad, and the aid from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the international community.
"As I said in my presentation to the IOC in 2001, the three concepts for the
Beijing Olympic Games are Green Olympics, High-tech Olympics and People's Olympics. Our objective is to spread the Olympic spirit among people, especially the 400 million young people in China."
Liu said the city had put an emphasis on controlling air pollution and promoting landscape greening to fulfil the Green Olympics concept.
"For example, we had Shougang Steel Group relocate most operations to outside
Beijing and reduce steel output at its
Beijing plant. Also shut down was the
Beijing Coking Factory and a chemical plant of
Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Group. As a result ,more than 64 percent of the days in 2007 was of Grade II or better air quality."
He added Beijing's afforested land increased significantly. "W ehave so far fulfilled all the objectives of 'Green Olympics.'"
Liu said engineers and technicians had made a lot of innovations in the construction of Olympic venues such as the National Stadium and the Aquatic Center and that was an manifestation of "High-tech Olympics."
"To carry out the People's Olympics, we were people-oriented in designing and building venues, laying security facilities and arranging media services. We also advocated civilized behavior among citizens, organized Olympic-related cultural activities in schools and to absorb volunteers from all walks of life.
"Letting the people share the fruit of the Games has long been one of our objectives. In effort to ease traffic, we opened new metro lines to extend the total length of track to 200 kilometers from the current 142 kilometers. At the same time, we kept the prices of public transport low."
Liu also referred to the renovation of more than 600 ancient city alleyways, 400 old residential areas and 100-plus main streets in
Beijing which improved living conditions for citizens, especially those low-income people who lived in old alleyways, or hutong.
"We will do our utmost to deal with every detail of the preparation work at this critical stage to make sure the 2008 Olympic Games will be a great success."
