Next month's Beijing Olympic Games was forecast to generate about US$2 billion of direct revenue for the host city, the People's Daily reported on Tuesday.

The direct revenue came from sponsorship, licensing, advertisements, ticket sales and broadcasting rights, according to the Beijing Olympic Economy Research Association.

The newspaper said hosting the Olympics, August 8 to 24, had made a notable contribution to the capital's economic growth.

Figures released by the Beijing Statistics Bureau (BSB) showed the city's annual GDP growth between 2005 to 2008, which saw huge investments for the Olympics, would reach 11.8 percent on average, 0.8 percentage point higher than the 2001-2005 period.

In 2007, the city's GDP reached 900 billion yuan (about US$132 billion), up 12.3 percent over a year earlier. The Olympic factor contributed 1.14 percent to the growth rate, according to BSB.

The bureau forecast the Olympic factor, which referred to the impetus generated by investment into infrastructure and sports facilities, would add 0.85 percent to Beijing's GDP growth this year.

As a whole, the economic activities related to the Games would have generated a combined GDP of 105.5 billion yuan for Beijing during 2004-2008, according to the BSB.

City authorities reported earlier that it spent less than 13 billion yuan on the construction of 31 competition venues, 45 training venues and other Games' facilities.

Nationally, the Olympics was estimated to generate an overall economic benefit worth some 600 billion yuan, according to a study by Lin Xianpeng, a Beijing Sports University professor.

(Xinhua News Agency July 30, 2008)