The full costs of building the temporary facility and hosting the event has not been publicly revealed.
In February this year, then Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth Eric Chua said that construction cost of the temporary facility is still being finalised, but it is expected to be “comparable” to the cost borne by other host cities that built temporary facilities to host the event.
He added that tourist revenue generated from the upcoming World Aquatics and World Aquatics Masters Championships is projected to hit S$60 million (US$44.7 million), with 40,000 international visitors expected at the month-long event in Singapore.
Mr Chay echoed similar comments on Monday when asked about the cost of the arena and whether it was within the budget.
“At these major championships, they built temporary venues for all events. But for us, we’re using an existing venue at OCBC Aquatic Center for two of our major events – diving as well as water polo. And we built this facility for swimming as well as artistic swimming, and of course, in Sentosa, we’ll have open water and diving,” he said.
“I’m happy to say that the cost of organising this, building this facility, is comparable to that of Doha as well as Fukuoka (World Championships).”
Late last year, the Pan Pacific Hotels Group, Trans-Eurokars Mazda and OCBC were unveiled as the event’s hotel, automobile and banking partners, with Singtel on Monday announced as the official network connectivity partner of the meet.
