I wonder if the government’s austerity drive and the anti-corruption drive is contributing to the slow down in spending and exacerbating the slowdown in the economy?
FT: “Fireworks are out and frugality is in at China’s national games after the organising committee rushed to comply with edicts requiring officials across the country to tighten their belts as the economy slows.
The austere sporting championships, which start at the end of August in the northeastern province of Liaoning, will contrast with China’s lavish spending on major events from the Beijing Olympics in 2008 to the world expo in Shanghai in 2010 when the economy was growing at a double-digit pace.
Now, with growth dipping towards 7.5 per cent and Xi Jinping, the new president, railing against ostentatious displays of wealth, the organisers of the Liaoning games – China’s national equivalent of the Olympics – have gone out of their way to highlight their cost-saving measures.
The funding for the games, held every four years and the largest national sporting event in the country, has been cut by 78 per cent from the original budget to Rmb800m ($130m), with fewer new competition venues and less spending on entertainment than initially planned, they announced.
The opening ceremonies will be held during the day to reduce the need for lighting, the first time since 1987 that they have not been at night. The organisers also vowed not to use fireworks, departing with the tradition of bombastic pyrotechnic displays at the start of Chinese sporting events.
“For the opening and closing ceremonies, stadium construction, the torch relay and all other segments of the national games, we strive to create, hopefully, a fresh fashion of organising big events in a thrifty manner,” said He Min, deputy director of the organising committee.
Along with cancelling a series of conferences and exhibitions on the sidelines of the games, the number of invited foreign guests has also been reduced by half. Those foreigners who do make the guest list will have to endure relative privation. There will be “neither welcome banquets nor souvenirs for them”, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The shift to austerity falls in line with a tone set by Mr Xi since his first days in office late last year as head of the Communist party. He banned flower displays at official events and ordered that banquets should be pared back, demanding that government spending should be less wasteful.
These demands have intensified in recent months as the Chinese economy has slowed and after Mr Xi launched a new campaign against “hedonism and extravagance” among other ills.
The finance ministry this week ordered all units of the central government to reduce general expenditures such as car purchases and overseas travel.”
via Austerity threatens to take gloss off China’s national games – FT.com.
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