Hong Kong Home Affairs Bureau announced Friday that an additional 8 million HK dollars (1.03 million U.S. dollars) will be provided annually to the Hong Kong Sports Institute to help more athletes receive full-time training.

Half the recurrent fund is for direct financial support for athletes and the rest is for strengthening the institute's elite training program.

The bureau currently allocates 130 million HK dollars (16.67 million U.S. dollars) in recurrent funding to the institute for elite training.

In July the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government invested 8.5 million HK dollars (1.09 million U.S. dollars) as a one-off start-up fund for the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong to implement the Hong Kong Athletes Career and Education Program, which provides athletes support to pursue higher education and vocational development when they retire.

Together with other sponsorships, the fund has now reached 14 million HK dollars (1.80 million U.S. dollars).

The bureau has also reached consensus with eight University Grants Committee funded institutions to strengthen their academic support for elite athletes.

Shue Yan University, the Institute of Vocational Education and the Chu Hai College of Higher Education will also provide assistance.

The HKSAR government will spend 1.8 billion HK dollars (230.80 million U.S. dollars) in the redevelopment of the sports institute. More than 1 billion HK dollars(1.28 million U.S. dollars) has been spent on new venues and upgrading facilities for the East Asian Games next year.

The total operational expenditure for the games is 240 million HK dollars (30.77 million U.S. dollars). A total of 63 million HK dollars (8.08 million U.S. dollars) sponsorship has so far been received.

(Xinhua News Agency August 30, 2008)