China says venues on schedule and budget for 2008

BEIJING, July 11 (Reuters) The building of Olympic sites for the 2008 Beijing Games is on schedule and on budget despite a fire at the table tennis venue and a small problem with poor quality materials, officials said today.

While declining to give the exact budget, Wu Jingjun, chief engineer of Olympic venue construction, said the total cost would be less than the Athens or Sydney Games.

''At present Olympic venue construction is progressing normally,'' Wu told a news conference. ''Investment is progressing in line with original investment goals, and has been controlled.

''It will be less than Sydney and other previous Games,'' he added. ''Of course as time passes, and as needs change or are refined, there will be some adjustments. But we calculate that at present investment should be controlled to within what was planned.'' While some venues, like the softball pitch, had already hosted test events, many more were planned for later this year, Wu said, when almost all 31 venues were due to be finished.

The last venue to be completed is expected to be the main stadium - known as the ''Bird's Nest'' for its unusual design - which will be late next March.

Some of the temporary facilities, which include beach volleyball and fencing, may escape being pulled down at the end and could be kept, Wu said, without elaborating.

A fire last week at the nearly completed table tennis venue on the campus of the elite Peking University would not affect a test event there planned for December, Wu added.

''It's effect on construction was limited,'' he said.

The building of venues for the first Olympics to be held in China has progressed smoothly with none of the major delays that marked the preparations for the last Summer Games in Athens.

But Wu's deputy, Xu Jian, admitted they had found some quality problems with building materials, especially steel, though he insisted it was a very minor issue.

''There are cases of substandard materials, but not too many.

They are just individual cases, and we are dealing with every single case immediately if found,'' Xu said.

The Games open on Aug. 8, 2008.

REUTERS BJR BD1548