NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Sept 8: China will dedicate a stretch of its Great Wall to gold medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics if the City is awarded the Games, a senior Chinese Olympic bld official said on Wednesday, reports Reuter.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is due to choose between Beijing, Sydney. Berlin, Manchester and Istanbul at a meeting tn Monte Carlo on September 23.

"Should Beijing be honoured with the 2000 Olympic Games we will, at the section of Great Wall within Beijing's boundary, dedicate a 21st century. Olympiad monument," Wang Boasen, finance head .of the city's bid committee, said.

Wang, seeking to sweeten a bid dented by human rights concerns, told an Informal meeting of Pacific rim nations on the Indonesian tourist Island of Bali that the monument would carry names of gold medalists arid IOC members.

Rod McGeoch, chief executive of Sydney's bld committee, told some 600 bankers, officials and diplomats that winning the Games could create 156.000 new jobs In Australia between now and 2000.

"Los Angeles pocketed 230 million dollar in 1984. The 2000 Games Is a prize sought after with extraordinary intensity," said McGeoch. who added that Sydney, unlike Beijing, now had In place more facilities than required for staging the Games.

China, a nation of 1.1 billion people, wants, the 2000 Games to show off Its recent economic and social achievements. It Is also seeking to redeem an image hurt by the 1989 killings of prodemocracy protesters In Beijing's Tiananmen Square, posing,a tough political decision for the IOC. .