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Reference News reported on July 21 According to a report on the Kazakh International News Agency website on July 17, hosting the Olympics is a major financial undertaking, involving millions of dollars in various expenses long before the opening of the Olympics. A reporter from the Kazakh International News Agency investigated how major cities invest huge sums of money in evaluating, preparing and submitting bids to the International Olympic Committee.

These initial costs include planning, hiring consultants, organizing events and necessary travel, and generally range from $50 million to $100 million.

For example, Tokyo spent about $150 million on its failed bid for the 2016 Olympics, and about half that amount on its successful bid for 2020. Conversely, Toronto withdrew from its bid for the 2024 Olympics due to a $60 million cost.

After winning the bid to host the 2024 Olympics in 2017, Paris initially set a budget of $8 billion for the event. However, that budget has since increased by billions of dollars.

If Paris manages to keep final costs within that range, split evenly between operating expenses and new infrastructure, it would host the most economical Summer Olympics in decades, according to an analysis by S&P Global Ratings.

The city has managed to do this by using existing venues – such as those for the French Open and the 2016European Football ChampionshipThe Games will also expand to stadiums in other French cities, including Lyon, Marseille and Nice. Despite these measures, Paris has invested $4.5 billion in infrastructure, including $1.6 billion for the Olympic Village, which is at least a third over its original budget.

One of the key strategies in Paris' attempt to host a cost-effective Olympics is to use temporary structures to transform iconic landmarks into beautiful television backdrops for the events, minimizing the number of new permanent buildings.Beach Volleyballand the blindfootballThe Palace of Versailles will host the dressage competition andEquestrianThe Games will be a powerful promotional event for Paris to showcase its landmarks and culture.

The report said, however, that the question lingers: What will be the lasting impact once the Olympic Games are over? In addition to the surge in tourist numbers, Paris is also aiming to reap the long-term benefits of its 9 billion euros (about 11.3 billion U.S. dollars) investment.

Emmanuel Gregoire, who was Paris' Socialist deputy mayor in charge of urban planning from 2014 until last week, said: "We saw the Olympics as a great opportunity to accelerate the green transformation of the city. We transformed public spaces, public transport and the river - without the Olympics it would have taken another 10 or 20 years."

Operational costs, especially security, are also a large part of the Olympics budget. Security costs have surged since the September 11 attacks, with Sydney spending $250 million on security for the 2000 Olympics and Athens spending more than $1.5 billion in 2004.

Another major issue is building "big, useless things," that is, facilities that are expensive to build but have limited use after the Olympics. These facilities can become an economic burden for many years. For example, Sydney's Olympic Stadium costs the city $30 million a year to maintain.

Most of the facilities built for the 2004 Athens Olympics, which led to Greece's debt crisis, are now abandoned.

Economists also highlight the hidden costs of hosting the Olympics, such as the opportunity cost of public spending that could have been spent elsewhere. Paying off the debts of hosting the Olympics could put pressure on public budgets for decades. Montreal didn't pay off its debts for the 1976 Olympics until 2006, while debts from the Athens Olympics bankrupted Greece.

A venue for the Paris Olympics under construction (Reuters)