The 2008 IBAF Final Olympic Qualifying Tournament will be kicked off on March 7th in the Inter-continental Baseball Stadium, and will span to March 14th. 8 participant countries, such as Taiwan, Korea, Spain, Germany, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and Mexico will compete for 3 opportunities to go to the 2008 Olympic Games. Tickets of some popular games were sold out, and Taichung City Government has announced that an extra 5000 seats in the field area will be completed on March 7th to accommodate a larger audience.

Mayor Hu in the director meeting of city government thanked colleagues of the Department of Construction for finishing their important mission. He mentioned his visit on March. 1st when he realized that the painting and setting of chairs and rails in field area was almost completed with only some remaining final steps, and felt relieved.

Mayor Hu commented that the Australian Commerce and Industry Office in Taipei has called for Australians in Taiwan, and 22 Australian groups would be expected in Taichung on March 8th. The Mayor has designated some related departments to treat and invite offices of other countries in Taiwan to watch the games, taking the chance to promote Taichung City.

Director Wang of the Department of Construction explained that the seat expansion in the field area was actually started in August of 2007, but was delayed for 2 months due to green-coverage-rate evaluation and was almost not able to catch the time of Tournament.

The subsequent work, including greening and trash cleaning, gaining use permits and fire fighting inspections will be processed during the coming short term. The steel structure of the seat area accommodates 16 levels of concrete benches, not numbered, for 5000 audience members, and has 90 lady’s rooms and 70 gentlemen’s rest rooms.

Those newly added 500 seats will start to be sold from 10 AM of March 4th in 7-11.