International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said he was impressed about the great changes that have taken place in the city which he first visited in 2001.

"Nine years ago, you didn't have so many skyscrapers, you didn't have the high TV tower," Rogge told Xinhua last week after he attended the Asian Games opening ceremony held in the Haixinsha Island on Nov. 12.

"Guangzhou was just a provincial capital then, now it has become a world city."

In stark contrast to the tradition that venues were clustered at previous multi-sports events, the venues for this Asiad are scattered throughout the city's 10 districts, two country-level satellite cities and the three co-host cities of Foshan, Dongguan and Shanwei.

Liu admitted that the participants may feel inconienvent about traveling from venues to venues but it is for "the sake of the city's future development".

"Guangzhou has taken actions to ensure the venues don't become 'white elephants' when the games are over," he said.

The Asian Games Town will become a residential community, and a dragonboat venue 74 kilometers from downtown Guangzhou will become a public park.

"Big events usually result in short-term losses for their hosts," said Chen Jian, an economist at the Beijing Institute for Socialism. "But the impact on a city's image is huge, and the investments will bring infrastructure improvements that will boost future growth."

China's economy has expanded almost 20 times since 1990, when Beijng hosted the 11th Asian Games, the first major international sporting event held in the nation, and Guangzhou saw its gross domestic product rise 11.5 percent last year to 911.3 billion yuan.

"After the Asian Games, Guangzhou's moving toward world city status," said Li Yongning, a professor of economics and sociology at the Guangdong Research Institute for International Strategies in Guangzhou. "The investment for the games helped internationalize and modernize the city."

(Xinhua News Agency November 26, 2010)