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In the past five years, the national sports lottery tickets, out
of a total sale of 18.3 billion yuan, has generated an earning of
six billion yuan for public funds, and it has thus opened a new
channel for the development of sports industry in China.
Yuan Weimin, director-general of State Sports Administration, called
on February 5 for a composed and careful operation of sports lottery.
Sports lottery business as a strong support for sports industry
has been preferentially authorized by the government, therefore,
we should make the best use of it, said Yuan. Lottery selling in
this year is expected to reach 12 billion yuan, which is much higher
than that of last year. Among the cities granted the issuance of
sports lottery, Sichuan's GDP ranks the 11th place in the country,
however, its lottery earnings run up to the second. The average
sales amount per person in Tibet tops the country.
The Ministry of Finance has approved of issuing the soccer lottery
to 12 provinces and cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin,
Liaoning, Guangdong, Shandong, Sichuan, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Jiangsu,
Fujian and Hubei. The experimental operation of Soccer lottery in
the 12 provinces and cities should be managed with care and attention
and no monkey business should be allowed before it is to be extended
to the whole country. In the meantime, the building of a computerized
lottery-selling network is called for in order to help boom the
development of lottery industry in western regions.
Yuan also stressed the open and transparent management and use
of the lottery earnings. As previously reported, in some areas this
earning was devoured or taken away for other use, especially in
the poverty-stricken areas. This is in violation of the related
regulations and must be punished rigidly. All lottery profits should
go to the development of China's sports industry.
(People's Daily 02/05/01)
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