Honorable Clyde Puli, Parliamentary Secretary for Youth & Sport,

Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco,

President of Maltese Olympic Committee

Mr. Joseph Cassar,

General Secretary of Maltese Olympic Committee,

Mr. Charles Camenzuli, Media Director of MOC and President of

Malta Sports Journalists Association

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

It gives me great pleasure to join you at this symposium to welcome the forthcoming Beijing Olympic Games. I would like to begin by thanking MOC and Malta Sports Journalists Association for jointly organizing this event. My particular thanks also go to Hon. Clyde Puli for his kind presence.

In exactly 20 days, at 8 pm, on 8 August 2008, the 29th Olympic Games will open in Beijing. Today I would like to share with you some of its unique aspects, by which, I think you may agree with me, the Olympics derived from the west is truly being enriched and enshrined with the name of Beijing in the east.

Firstly, biggest scale. With a record spending about 43 billion U.S dollars, Beijing has taken on a brand new look. Further to the art piece "Water Cube" delivered for use in January, the landmark China's National Stadium, known as the "Bird's Nest", was fully operational on June 28, signaling the readiness of all 37 venues for the Games. Three major media services facilities for the Games have recently run into service to accomodate the biggest media contingent ever-- the Main Press Center, the International Broadcasting Center for 21,600 accredited reporters, and the 2008 Beijing International Media Center to serve some 10,000 unaccredited reporters. With the largest number of host cities at six, together with China's largest Olympic team to date of about 570 athletes contesting 28 sports, the Beijing Games shall welcome about 100 ceremonial dignitaries and over 10,000 athelets from all over the world. It will also be remembered in history by an estimated record 4 billion people watching the Games and a 500,000-strong army of volunteers helping visitors, including 100,000 at sports venues.

Secondly, massive clear sky campaign. Over the past decade, Beijing has made air quality a priority and invested about 7 billion US dollars in the effort to reduce pollution. The capital's afforested land also increased by 10,000 hectares and meadowland by 4,653 hectares from 2001 to 2007. Measures such as the closure and removal of small polluting factories, the transformation of residential heating from coal to gas and electricity, and stricter vehicle exhaust standards, have all proved to be helpful to improve the capital's air quality.The number of "blue sky" days in the city -- an indicator of air quality -- increased to 246 last year from 100 in1998. The latest move was taking 210,000, ie, half the number of government cars and 300,000 high-emission cars off roads. Beijing also announced that private cars will be banned on alternate days from tomorrow, depending on whether their number plates end in odd or even numbers. This measure could practically help further reduce 63 percent of traffic pollution emissions in the city. Just as commented by International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge recently, "We are confident that atmospheric pollution will have no major impact on the Olympic Games."

Thirdly, largest transport expansion. Further to the opening of the world's largest Terminal 3 in February, a new terminal building for Olympic charter flights has opened in July, which makes the airport capable to receive about 5.56 million people during the Games. Meanwhile, subway lines 5, 10, the Olympic line and a 28-km light rail linking the downtown with the airport are all to be in operation before the Games. It will only take 16 minutes to travel from downtown to the airport by light rail, compared with the current one-hour trip by road. Thirty-four special bus routes linking Games venues will operate during the event, and they'll be free to those who have Olympic tickets. As I mentioned before, an odd-even number traffic control system soon to be introduced will take about half of the capital's more than 3 million vehicles off the roads, which surely will further ensure for a more smooth Olympics.

Fourthly, unique challenges and active response. The year of 2008 has also seen China hit by a massive earthquake never experienced before, which killed nearly 70,000 people and left 5 million homeless. A riot broke out earlier in Tibet of China and led to 18 deaths of innocent civilians. And ensuingly, in carrying out the longest, highest torch relay to promote the Olympic spirits, it has encountered deliberate disruption of the Olympic torch relay by the Tibetan separatists and anti-China forces. Still, Tibetan extremists are threatening to hijack the Olympics for their evil purpose of Tibet independence. All these misfortunes, however, have in no way dampened or taken away China's enthusiasm to make all the bidding promises into reality. China is determined not to allow the Olympics to be politicized and taken advantage of to split China. To ensure a smooth run-up to the Beijing Games, an anti-terrorist force of almost 100,000 commandos, police and army troops has already been put on high alert. More than 290,000 volunteers are patrolling around the city in a bid to ensure security. Tight security measures such as extra security checks on both airport and subway, suspension of postal service for mailing parcels containing liquids etc are raising security to an unprecedented level. China also cooperates extensively with other nations and international organizations such as the SCO(Shanghai Cooperation Organization) in fighting terrorism. To make for a safe Olympics, the whole China is now gearing up security actively.

Lastly but not leastly, some odds and ends, which are also interesting enough to compliment the uniqueness of the Beijing Games.

In homage to the Beijing Olympic Games, the whole China is warming up with a "baby Olympic" as recent figures showing a total of 4,104 Chinese have been named Aoyun (Chinese for "the Olympics"). A "wedding Olympic" is also booming with an estimated 15,000 couples to get married in Beijing on the opening day of the Olympics. To educate young people through sports, about 400 million young people in more than 500,000 schools across the country have received Olympic lessons. In Beijing, 5 million residents are now practicing English, thus 1 in every 3 of Beijing people shall be able to communicate in English. With the lowest ticket prices ever offered for a Olympic sports competition at only 4 dollars and for students at the handsome price of 0.6 dollars, I think every one will agree that the whole nation of China is indeed smiling and dancing to the rhythm of Olympics.

Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is no coincidence that the Beijing Games begins at 8 p.m. on the 8th day of the 8th month of 2008. The number 8 has very special significance to the Chinese, which is highly favored for its connotations of good luck, fortune and longevity. So please allow me to end my speech by offering all the auspicious wishes to the Maltese Olympic Contingent for their wonderful performance and happy time in Beijing.

Thank you.