Next year's Shanghai World Expo is expected to break even and the event, costing nearly twice as much as the Beijing Olympics, may even make a profit, the city's top official said during a TV interview.
If the city government does make a profit, it will build affordable housing on the Expo site for low-income citizens, Shanghai Party chief Yu Zhengsheng told Hong Kong's Phoenix Satellite TV.
"I estimate that the investment in the Shanghai Expo can be recovered," Yu said.
In the history of the World Expo, only a third of organizers made a profit from the global event.
The organizer of the Hanover Expo in Germany lost more than 1 billion U.S. dollars in 2000, while the Expo Aichi organizer of Japan made a profit of 90 million U.S. dollars in 2005.
The overall budget for the Shanghai Expo is 28.6 billion yuan (4.19 billion U.S. dollars).
This is made up of 18 billion yuan for the construction of the Expo site and 10.6 billion yuan for running costs during the May to October event.
