According to Jiang Xiaoyu, Vice President of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the XXIX Olympiad, the total operation expenditures for the Games will be no more than what Athens spent, or $2.4 billion. That means the Beijing Olympics may not be a profitable deal, because the expenditures might be quite close to the revenues. Even if it could make money, the margin would not be a wide one.

Is the Chinese economy likely to fall victim to a post-Olympic slowdown?

Li Yining: Theoretically, a post-Olympic letdown seems an unavoidable curse and has occurred in eight of the past 11 host countries. The construction boom and consumption mania in the run-up to the Games could heat up the economy. However, the bubble could easily burst after the Games. Once the investment growth tapers off and consumption demand becomes anemic, the economy would enter a freefall. In a word, it was the sharp drop in investment and consumption after the Games that dealt a blow to the economies of the host countries.

Australia was successful in hosting the 2000 Olympic Games, but not so much in subsequent economic development. Its GDP grew a dismal 2.15 percent, 3.9 percent and 3.1 percent year on year, respectively, from 2001 to 2003, much lower than the 4.36-percent growth rate registered in 1999.

But the post-Olympic slowdown might not pose a headache for China, whose follow-up investments and robust demands would further prop up the economy. A recent report by J.P. Morgan Co. Inc. also said China would defy the records of its predecessors because big economies are always less vulnerable to a post-Olympic recession.

The United States was one of the few countries that shrugged off the curse, because the total output of the Atlanta Olympics made up only 2 percent of its total economy in 1996. Today's China is similar to the United States in 1996, because both economies have huge bases.

J.P. Morgan predicted that China's GDP would amount to $4.5 trillion in 2007, 22 times that of Greece in 2004 and 11 times that of Australia in 2000. As a result, the country has much more resilience to the impact of a post-Olympic slowdown and the fluctuations of the global economy.

Zhuang Jian: Research by the Asian Development Bank indicates that the Olympics would contribute a minimum 0.2-0.4 percent to China's GDP this year, and therefore would have little impact on the national economy. The Olympic Games are just an occasional factor, and what persists is the country's huge demand for infrastructure improvement. Chinese metropolises such as Beijing and Shanghai are still plagued by traffic congestion, and the country's vast rural areas are going on massive urbanization offensives. As a result, China will not relax its efforts in infrastructure development.

Chen Jian: Nor will Beijing falter on the infrastructure improvement, because its suburban districts and urban public facilities still need heavy investments. According to the city's development program, its urban rail lines will be extended to 560 km by 2015 from the current 200 km. Besides this, strict efforts will be made in the construction of economically affordable houses and environmentally friendly projects such as ecological conservation zones.

Meanwhile, industries related to the Olympics, such as tourism, finance and exhibitions, will bask in the afterglow of the Games and maintain torrid growth. Some other industries such as construction and real estate might see modest corrections but will head for growth afterward.

The outbreak of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis has put China on alarm. The global economic downturn and surging commodity prices also have cast shadows over the country's economic prospects. But these unfavorable factors will fail to pull down the economic advancement of China, demonstrated by its GDP in the first half of this year, showing a year-on-year increase of 10.4 percent.

After the Games, China will soon embrace the Beijing International Marathon 2008, the updated China Open, Shanghai World Expo 2010 and the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games. All of them could overtake the Olympics as fresh powerhouses for the country's economic development.