The yield from ticket sales, broadcasting rights, sponsorship and merchandise will help to fill Bocog's coffers - a welcome return after it was recently said the budget had soared from US$1.6 billion to US$2.4 billion, a 50 per cent increase on that predicted when Beijing was handed the Games in 2001.

'Revenue from these four main areas can guarantee a budget of US$2.4 billion. According to my initial estimates, the [Olympics] will generate about US$20 million to US$30 million in net profit,' Mr Yu was quoted as saying on the website China Business News.

'I can confidently tell you, we do not need one cent of foreign financial support to hold this Olympics.'

Mr Yu claimed the profits would be ploughed into a fund for the nation's sporting heroes - many of whom have been complaining to the media about being left in poverty by the state's sporting machine once they were no longer able to bring glory to the motherland.

The high forecasted turnover will please the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the event's governing body.

The prediction far outstrips recent Games, which have proved to be hit-and-miss affairs for the respective accountants and taxpayers.

The IOC will contribute about half of the costs while Beijing's three-tiered sponsorship programme - which Bocog says is 'the most comprehensive in the history of the Games' - is set to more than cover the rest.

Until now, the government, organisers and sponsors had been keen not to miss out on possible revenue. One sticking point is how much compensation will be paid to scores of factories ordered to slash production by as much as 70 per cent for a month to clean the air during August.

Although most Olympic Games turn a profit from their operating costs - the 1984 Los Angeles Games holds the record with profits of US$225 million - the infrastructure bill can take years to pay off for many.

However, it is impossible to put a price on the international publicity the Olympics brings.

But as the mainland moved yesterday to crack down on fake Olympics cigarettes, many will recall the mayor of Montreal saying the Olympics 'can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby' when the city was preparing for the 1976 Games.

More than three decades later, Canadians still pay taxes on their cigarettes to finance the Games.

And British Olympics minister Tessa Jowell flew back to London after a fact-finding mission in Beijing this week to hear the predicted budget for London's games had soared to #9.3 billion (HK$148.55 billion), more than double the figure given in London's bid book - an over spend that exposed what one politician described as 'the most catastrophic piece of financial mismanagement in the history of the world'.