A new "national" stadium has opened in Maputo, following a formal handover by the Chinese contractor in a ceremony attended by officials from the two countries. The stadium has seating capacity of 42,000 and is supposedly built to "Olympic standards". Although the project is covered under a bilateral accord between China and Mozambique, it is not strictly an aid project, as the US$65m cost of the stadium is to be assumed as sovereign national debt. There is growing concern about the government borrowing that has funded several questionable prestige and infrastructure projects, such as the US$300m airport planned for Pemba (February 2011, Economic performance). Moreover, the extra debt is being contracted shortly after the country benefited from large-scale debt relief through the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) initiative. The Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts that in 2011 debt service will more than double from its level in 2009 of US$65m to US$133m. The external debt stock is set to rise from US$4.2bn to US$5.5bn over the same period.