The main projects of the Asian Games Town - the athletes' village, media village, technical officials' village, and logistics service area will officially begin construction this month. The Main Stadium and the integrated Media Centre would be initiated in September. On the morning of July 15th, more than 60 CPPCC members arrived at the construction site of the venues, inspecting the undergoing process.

The number of planned venues has been reduced to 79, the costs of construction and maintenance were to be limited to less than RMB 2.5 billion. According to the construction cycle and difficulty, venues would be initiated at four different time period. Currently the construction of new venues has been started. The civil engineering work for all of the venues would be completed by December 2009.

Tian Xinde, deputy secretary of the Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee (GAGOC), said that Guangzhou originally planned to hold the equestrian events in Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong's Beijing Olympic equestrian venue would be returned to its owners after the Games, after consultation with the State Sports General Administration, the GAGOC would use Conghua's equestrian venue, which hosted the events of the Eighth National Traditional Ethnic Sports. Near Conghua's venue a non-infected area in line with international standards would be set up. This would be Mainland China's first venue for international equestrian competition. An expansion application has been submitted to the State Council for approval.

Editor: Yan