IOC
says Tokyo budget efforts key for future bidders
Send a link to a friend
[June 28, 2017]
By Chris Gallagher
TOKYO (Reuters) - International Olympic
Committee (IOC) Vice President John Coates praised efforts by Tokyo
organizers to lower the budget for the 2020 Summer Games, saying
cost control was important for attracting future bid cities.
Figures released last month showed organizers had trimmed budget
estimates to 1.685 trillion yen ($15.7 billion) including
contingencies, from 1.8 trillion yen in their initial budget
unveiled in December.
Coates, speaking Wednesday at a meeting of the IOC Coordination
Commission on its fourth visit to Tokyo, said the IOC was pleased
with the reduction as well as organizers' emphasis on reducing costs
further.
"It is important to us that with these costs of the Games and the
final analysis that become public, they are going to be a reason to
attract candidate cities," he said. "To attract them to bid, rather
than to scare them off."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Jun/28/images/ads/current/garage_sale_bch.png)
In September last year, a Tokyo city government panel had warned
that expenses could balloon to 3 trillion yen.
That would have been some four times the estimate Tokyo had made
when it won the bidding in 2013, and prompted a worried IOC and
local organizers to form a working group on cutting costs.
The IOC is worried soaring costs could scare off
future bidders, after four cities dropped out of the 2024 race over
such concerns.
[to top of second column] |
![](../images/062817pics/sports61.jpg)
International Olympic Committee (IOC) Vice President John Coates (R)
meets with Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike (C) and Yoshiro Mori, head of
the 2020 Tokyo Olympics organising committee, before their joint
meeting in Tokyo, Japan in this photo taken by Kyodo June 28, 2017.
Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERS
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Mar/14/images/ads/current/tires250x300.gif)
"That is not only important to you, your taxpayers and the public,
but it is very important to the IOC," Coates said of reducing costs.
"It's for our own future that we're doing it, just as much as you
want to do it for your taxpayers."
The latest budget figures also show a reduction in the amount of
public money to be used. Meanwhile, the organizing committee has
increased its portion - paid through sponsorship, IOC contributions
and other private funds - to about 43 percent of the budget
excluding contingencies.
(Editing by Amlan Chakraborty) [© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All
rights reserved.]
Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten
or redistributed.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Jun/28/images/ads/current/cca_laptop-sda021709.png) |