Tokyo 2020 slashes budget to $17 billion

Tokyo : Tokyo 2020 Olympics organisers unveiled a smaller budget of up to $ 17 billion after coming under pressure to cut costs.

The figure, down from last month’s pledge to cap expenditure at $17.78 billion, follows warnings that the bill for the 2020 Games could soar as high as USD 30 billion.

Organising committee chief executive Toshiro Muto said the entire Games budget will be between 1.6 trillion and 1.8 trillion yen, which he put at USD 15-16.8 billion.

This year’s Rio Games cost $ 12 billion, while London 2012 came $13.7 billion under the exchange rate of the time.

The most complete budget yet for Tokyo 2020, comes after officials scrambled to slash the costs of building some Olympic venues.

It was revealed at talks between the Games’ organisers, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Tokyo and national governments, who are meeting regularly to try to cut costs.