FINA agrees sponsorship deal with China's NVC

BARCELONA (Reuters) - FINA has agreed a four-year sponsorship deal for the diving world series with Chinese firm NVC Lighting that will run from 2014-17, swimming's governing body said on Saturday.

Launched in 2007, the world series consisted this year of six meetings in Beijing, Dubai, Edinburgh, Moscow and Guadalajara, Mexico (twice).

The amount of prize money available for the series was a good indication of the value of the deal with NVC, FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu told a news conference at the world championships in Barcelona.

Each of the six meetings that took place this year was worth overall prize money of $192,000, according to the FINA website (www.fina.org).

NVC is China's biggest lighting manufacturer and was the official supplier for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange three years ago.

(Reporting by Iain Rogers; editing by Tony Jimenez)