Beijing Winter Olympics promote China's winter sports: newspaper

SINGAPORE, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- The ongoing 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics serve as a shot in the arm for China's ice and snow sports, according to a recent report by the Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao.

As part of its bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, China promised to promote its ice and snow sports, with an ambitious goal of "engaging 300 million people in winter sports."

Official figures released last month showed that China had exceeded the target, with 346 million people taking part in ice and snow sports in China by the end of last October, the report said.

Since China won the bid in 2015 to host the Winter Olympics, ski resorts and ice rinks have sprung up all over the country, including indoor ice rinks and "dry snow" ski resorts in the southern tropical province of Hainan.

In total, China has 654 standard skating rinks and 803 indoor and outdoor ski resorts of all types at the beginning of 2021, up 317 percent and 41 percent respectively from 2015, according to official data.

China's ice and snow industry recorded a market value of 600 billion yuan (about 96 billion U.S. dollars) by the end of 2020, according to a report released by Colliers International last month. The same report predicted that the industry in China will step into a mature stage from 2025, with a scale expected to reach 1 trillion yuan (about 157 billion U.S. dollars).