Eight Eight Eight

Picture: ChinaDaily


After a long 7 years of waiting, the coming out party for China begins today. The 29th Olympics -One World, One Dream starts tonight at 8.08pm and will only ends on the 24th August. For our information, I refurnish below "Beijing Olympics by the numbers" which was sourced from The Sun(via Graphic News- BOCOG, Kyodo News, Beijing Municipal Government)

8:08pm, 08/08/08

Time and date of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games-eight is a lucky number in China

10,500

Number of athletes

302

Gold medals in 28 sports at 37 venues

2 million

Visitors expected

USD37.6b

Record cost of stadiums and transport infrastructure-more than twice what Greece spent on 2004 Athens Olympics. 12 Beijing venues are new, 11 are existing facilities, and 8 are temporary

USD300m

Amount to be spent on security. Security for 2004 Games cost USD1.4b

100,000

Police deployed, backed by 600,000 volunteers

1.5m

Beijing tenants evicted to clear way for venues and other facilities-one in 10 of Beijing's population

70,000

Number of Olympic volunteers

3.3m

Number of cars expected on Beijing's gridlocked streets during Olympics

Some other mind boggling numbers- 205 countries to participate

15,000 performers and 29,000 firework shells to be used for the opening

* No party for Shanghai Stock Exchange- The index close down 4.5% to 2,606 points.

* Jakarta is to consider longer time of over 3-5 years for Maybank to par down its shareholdings to get Bank Negara to approve the deal. Meanwhile analysts in Indonesia have downgraded BII ranging from Rp200-Rp375. Maybank's price was Rp510.

* InternationalHeraldTribune: Britain's economy is in worse shape than most in Europe, with the exception of Spain and Ireland, because its heavy reliance on two industries that currently struggle the most: housing and financial services.

* China's currency on Friday fell against the strengthening USD for the 9th consecutive day.

* FT.com: The Euro fell to a fresh seven week low against the USD and European government bonds rose sharply as concern about the outlook for the Euro Zone economy intensifies aided also by Trichet's worry.