SHIJIAZHUANG, China, June 3 (Xinhua) -- China's Hebei Province aims at bringing the total scale of winter sports industry in the province to 120 billion yuan (about 16.87 billion U.S. dollars) by 2022, according to a new plan launched by Hebei authorities on Wednesday.
According to the plan, Hebei government will develop the city of Zhangjiakou, which will host many snow events of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, into a world-class city for ice and snow sports, winter tourism, and for the related industry. According to the project's estimates, the scale of winter sports industry in Zhangjiakou could reach 60 billion yuan (about 8.44 billion U.S. dollars) by 2022.
Hebei will promote the construction of winter sports venues. It will support each city in the province to build a public skating rink, each to be 1,830 square meters, and help promote winter sports in schools.
Newly formed winter sports teams in each city will be provided with funding of between 300,000 (about 42,187 U.S. dollars) and 500,000 yuan (about 70,312 U.S. dollars).
Meanwhile, Hebei will also give special funds for industrial transformation and upgrading, and give financial support or rewards to qualified projects, in order to expand the ice and snow industry chain and support the development of the ice and snow equipment manufacturing industry. Enditem
