Beijing's municipal people's government will make further efforts this year to equip all the residential communities with standard sports gear, a spokesman of the city's sports bureau told Xinhua on Monday.
The sports projects being built for years in the Chinese capital have received very positive and warm response from the residents, the spokesman said. "And they played a very important role in our on-going fight against the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)," he said.
The bureau has earmarked a sum of 50 million yuan RMB (some sixmillion US dollars) for 1,200 more such projects around the city. When completed, each of Beijing's residential communities would own a set of standard sports gear, which is part of the nationwide sports-for-all program initiated during the 1990s.
A special data base would be set up with detailed engineering information for such projects, which would help to improve the maintenance of sports equipment now available in the communities, the spokesman said.
More sports training clinics are to be established to offer advise to sports enthusiasts and promote fitness activities among residents in their pursue of a more healthy and civilized life, headded.
(Xinhua News Agency June 24, 2003)
