Beijing foresees big windfall from 2008 Olympic Games

Beijing's Olympic marketing campaign is going so well that the 2008 Games could generate millions of dollars in profits, state media said this week.

The IOC expected Beijing to surpass Los Angeles's 1984 Olympic profit record of $220 million. Chinese organisers had set a more modest profit target of $16 million, Xinhua news agency reported.

Since the Los Angeles Games, most hosts have struggled even to break even as the costs of running the Olympics have soared.

Beijing's Olympic organisers had already forged deals with 10 domestic sponsors on top of the 11 companies that had signed global sponsorship deals with the IOC.

"We would like to see $1 billion in sponsorships, but there is much to do to reach that figure," Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing organising committee (BOCOG), was quoted as saying.

While around one quarter of that goal could come from Beijing's share of the global sponsorships, China-based companies should pour in most of the cash, Xinhua said.

Beijing has raised its original $1.625 billion Olympic operating budget to closer to $2 billion, in part due to security concerns.

But Chinese organisers and the IOC are confident that mark can be equalled or surpassed.