News Analysis: Chinese economy where to go post-Olympics
As the 2008 Beijing Olympics ended in a splendor of fireworks, concerns over a post-Games downturn for the Chinese economy re-emerged.
History shows that some host countries had experienced post-Olympic declines because investment dropped, such as Tokyo and Seoul.
Japan witnessed a drastic fall in growth the year after the 1964 Games, down to 5.2 percent from the year-earlier 13.1 percent. The Republic of Korea saw the rate slip from 10.6 percent to 6.7 percent in 1989.
Will China follow the same pattern? The world ponders.
WORRY OVER POST-GAMES ECONOMY JUSTIFIED OR NOT?
The capital’s gross domestic product (GDP) was expected to register an average annualized 11.8 percent growth between 2005 and 2008, when the city was investing for the Games, said Chen Jian, the Beijing Olympic Economy Research Association deputy head.
The expected growth was, on average, 0.8 percentage points higher than the average rate for the five-year period from 2001 to2005.
Chen said investment for the Games had driven the city’s growth by the biggest margin in 2007 — 1.14 percent.
Official statistics showed organizers had spent 13 billion yuan (1.90 billion U.S. dollars) on construction of venues and another 280 billion yuan on urban infrastructure, such as to upgrade transport and improve the environment.
About 1.5 million new job opportunities were created between 2005 and 2008 along with the investment.
Other host cities, including neighboring Tianjin and Qingdao, also reported higher growth as they geared up for the Games. The sailing events in Qingdao helped boost regional economic growth by0.8 percent annually.
The positive impact of hosting the Games was there, but its leverage among the huge national economy was limited.
Beijing’s gross domestic product (GDP) only accounted for less than 4 percent of the country’s total, and Olympic-related factors were not major forces behind the growth in host cities to make a difference after the Games.
Tags: economy, Olympic