The Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) will ensure that the number of Olympic tickets allocated to each nation or region will be no lower than that in the Athens Olympic Games, the BOCOG Ticketing Center said Tuesday.

The Beijing Olympic organizers are facing an unprecedented high demand for tickets from overseas spectators, Rong Jun, deputy director of the BOCOG Ticketing Center, said during the "Getting to Know" session of the BOCOG media center.

Overseas ticket sales are arranged through local Olympic Games Committees or agencies in each nation or region.

So far, more than 180 committees have applied for tickets of this summer's Olympic Games, almost twice the number of applicants in the Athens Olympic Games, Rong said.

Many of the committees applied for several times more tickets than the tickets they got in the Athens Olympics, he said, adding that in the previous Olympics Games in 2004, only less than 100 committees made ticket application.

The BOCOG will not compulsively sell tickets of high-demand sessions and low-demand sessions together, as was the policy adopted in some previous Olympic Games, Rong said.

The BOCOG have fully taken into consideration strong and traditional sports of each nation and region in the allocation of overseas tickets, Rong said.

The BOCOG Ticketing Centre is working on the second, or the last round of overseas tickets allocation. Amid high demand and limited number of tickets available, the BOCOG will have to communicate with the committees to make adjustments of their applications, he said.

Rong pointed out that, of the tickets allocated to overseas spectators, the ratio of high-demand and low-demand tickets is higher than that of the Athens Olympic Games.

Foreigners who work or study in China can buy tickets as Chinese citizens, through any designated Bank of China ticket outlets or the official ticketing website, Rong said.

For foreigners outside China, the only legal channel to buy tickets at this stage is to apply to the local Olympic Committees or agencies, he said, adding that during the Olympic Games, foreigners in China can also buy tickets in box offices around the venues.

Although the Olympic Games tickets cannot enable ticket holders to get visas, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs will try to facilitate the visa process of ticket holders, Rong said.

So far, 4.5 million tickets, or around 65 percent of all the Beijing Olympic Games tickets, have been sold.

(Xinhua News Agency April 30, 2008)