Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- The organizing committee for next month's Winter Olympic Games in Turin, Italy, today approved the 1.2 billion euros ($1.45 billion) preliminary budget for the event.

``We can now devote ourselves entirely to preparing the event,'' the organizing committee said in an e-mailed statement. The games will use a lottery to finance about 29 million euros in spending that was supposed to have been provided by the Italian government.

The games will be paid for out of the Turin committee's budget, sponsorship, ticket sales and government financing.

Italy, which is spending about 2.3 billion euros on the games, is struggling to boost economic growth and cut its budget deficit after recovering from a recession earlier this year. The organizing committee is spending about 1.3 billion euros more in part to refurbish the local stadium and three arenas for ice hockey, skating and other sports.

The games may boost Italy's gross domestic product by 0.2 percent on average each year from 2005 through 2009 as a result of higher investment, consumer spending and exports related to the games, according to a Turin Olympic Committee report last month.

Total investment on the Olympic Games of about 13 billion euros in the period will result in 17.4 billion euros of additional consumer spending in the Italian economy, according to the report.

The Winter Olympics will run from Feb. 10 to Feb. 26 in Turin and surrounding mountains.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anthony DiPaola in the Rome bureau at adipaola@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 16, 2006 14:12 EST