Johannesburg, July 3 (ANI): The World Cup will add Rand 38 billion to South Africa's economy this year, more or less the amount spent by South Africa to host the tournament, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Friday.
Addressing a press conference in Johannesburg on the economic benefits of the tournament, Sports 24 quoted Gordhan, as saying that the massive infrastructural improvements undertaken for the World Cup would benefit the country for generations to come.
The government has spent Rand 33.7 billion on hosting the tournament, including Rand 11.7 billion on 10 world cup stadiums, five of which were built from scratch, and Rand 11.2 billion to boost the rail network.
A further Rand 1.3 billion was spent on securing the event and Rand 1.5 billion on telecommunications and new broadcast technology, treasury figures showed.
Those figures do not include spending by host cities and provinces, which bring the overall bill closer to Rand 40 billion.
The minister estimated the world cup had created 130 000 jobs - in the construction of stadiums and other facilities, tourism and feeder industries. He did not say how many were permanent jobs.
Spending by hundreds of thousands of world cup visitors would add 0.4 percent to GDP this year, he predicted. (ANI)
|
|
Read More: South Goa
Comments:
