He added that the auditing and management body was an "independent agency" headed by Vice Minister of Supervision Li Zhilun and made up of 21 members plucked from Beijing and central government departments.

Beijing has announced plans to spend some $22 billion on preparations for the Games so far, including $1.625 billion on the venues and billions more on improved transport links and an environmental clean-up.

Commentators have been sceptical about Beijing's ability to safeguard a process of open bidding and market-based development in a country where political cronyism and back-door dealings have spawned several large graft scandals.

State media have said the city is considering a variety of measures to generate capital for the huge venture including public bond issues and stock listings by state-owned firms.

WATCHDOG PROMISED

The watchdog body was promised in the package Beijing used to land the 2008 bid last summer ahead of Paris, Toronto, Istanbul and Osaka.

Salt Lake City, the venue for next month's Winter Olympics, almost had its bid for the Games derailed by a bribery and corruption case that triggered the biggest scandal in the history of the Olympic movement.

Members of Beijing's organising committee for the Games (BOCOG) have gone to Salt Lake City for the Winter Games and have also begun consulting with the International Olympic Committee on a master plan for staging the Summer Olympics.

The plan is to be finalised by the end of this year, general planning director Zhang Jian told Wednesday's news conference.

He said blueprints for two major competition sites, the Olympic Park in northern Beijing and the Wukesong Sports and Culture Complex in the west, would be set by mid-2003 after bidding by prestigious international design firms.

In the second half of 2002, Beijing would test franchising and donation projects to finance the Games ahead of a plan to implement a market strategy in early 2003, he added.