According to a Beijing Olympics economy expert, the new competition venues created will be well utilised after the Games.

"When designing and planning the Olympic venues, we have already taken into consideration the utilization of venues after the Games." Du Wei, vice-president and secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Economic Research Association, said at a press conference yesterday.

He said many of the venues were built at universities or densely populated areas, so they would be efficiently used after the Games.

Some venues, such as the Bird's Nest national stadium and the Water Cube swimming complex, were built in the common domain of the Olympics Green. He added that according to the experience of previous Olympic Games, people did not expect to recoup investment in the short term.

Exhibitions and cultural activities will be held in future to improve the venues' utilisation, Du said. Some of the temporary venues will be dismantled, and others rebuilt for new purposes with an overall plan in that area.

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Beijing Games authorities claim that tests conducted on the food served at the Beijing Olympics show that the supply is "100 per cent" safe, with not a single food safety accident being reported so far.

Quoting a spokeswoman for food safety coordination with the Beijing Food Safety Administration Office, Xinhua news agency reports that supervisors from the Olympic food safety inspection team have "monitored more than 1.6 million shares of food and not a single food safety accident was reported".

Special attention

The official said Beijing has paid special attention to the four important links in the food supply chain, namely the farms, production, distribution and transportation and canteens.

The city has also "carried out thorough training of the cooking staff in the final catering link and kept the 'filing' of the menu, raw material and sampling of prepared food".

Moreover, as a precaution against "possible human criminal acts of toxic food" the city has equipped food monitoring staff with fast inspection tools which can detect more than 20 toxins and 40 dangerous substances.
The city has also built up a food accident emergency response database to prevent potential chemical or radioactive contamination.