Beijing is planning to build an international food street before the 2008 Olympic Games with restaurants offering dishes from all over the world, according to The Beijing News daily.

"It will serve as both a supporting facility for the Olympics and a tourist attraction," Jiang Huabo, director of the executive committee of the ongoing Second Beijing Western-style Food Cultural Festival being held from July 25 to Aug. 24, was cited as saying.

The plan to build a 50,000-square-meter international food street beside the Olympics Park has won the support from relevant Beijing municipal authorities, Jiang said.

Though it is an international metropolis home to many foreign embassies, Beijing does not have enough western-style food restaurants to meet the demand, said Hu Ping, director of the Market Department of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce.

"The development of western food restaurants in Beijing lags behind some major cities in other parts of China," said Chen Liqun, president of the Beijing Western-Style Food Association.

Statistics from the association show that there are 3,600 western-style food restaurants in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong province, and more than 1,600 in east China's Shanghai Municipality, while Beijing has only 600.

Part of the reason is Beijingers'traditional habit of eating Chinese food, and another reason is the high cost of eating western food, Jiang said.

The international food street is expected to introduce western food to more Chinese people and meet growing foreigner's demand, Jiang said.

The organizing committee of the Second Beijing Western-style Food Cultural Festival has asked more than 160 foreign embassies and 19 UN agencies in Beijing to help invite businesses from their countries to come here and open food stores, and so far many enterprises, both overseas and domestic, have shown great interest in the program, said Chen Liqun, also director of the organizing committee.

With comparatively fewer western-style restaurants than other Chinese metropolises like Shanghai and Guangzhou, Beijing is also planning to establish a center to train western-style food chefs as well as managerial and service staff from across the country, Chen said.

The 2008 Beijing Olympics will set a new demand for western food services, so it is necessary to set up such a training base to solve the staff shortage problem, according to Chen.

"Sometimes a Beijing-based restaurant cannot find a satisfactory head chef even with an annual salary offer of 500,000 yuan (62,000 US dollars)," Chen said.

(People's Daily  July 30, 2004)