A large number of people who secured tickets for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in the first stage of sales have still to complete payment procedures, Olympic Ticketing Center officials said yesterday.

Starting from tomorrow, those who secured tickets, can call the hotline 952008 to check payment procedures.

"In order to avoid cancellation of tickets for failure to pay, they must produce their identity cards and ticket booking numbers to complete payment procedures at 1,000 branches of the Bank of China," Rong Jun, director of the Olympic Ticketing Center, said.

"The payment deadline has not been decided yet," he said.

As announced last month, more than 300,000 people across the Chinese mainland were the first group to be allocated tickets for the Games.

Bank of China was designated by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee to collect payment from ticket holders on September 12.

"The failure to pay may be due to wrong information about the bank accounts of ticket holders or insufficient money in their accounts," Rong said.

He said the second stage of the sale of tickets will start in the second or third week of next month.

If people have not paid for their tickets by the deadline of the first stage, when it is announced, their booking will be cancelled and their tickets will go to the second stage for sale.

The second stage will be on a "first come, first serve" basis.

(China Daily September 24, 2007)