Disabled people who manage their own enterprises are being encouraged to get involved in the 2008 Paralympic Games as partners or sponsors providing sports equipment and related products, said the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) at the Development Forum of Chinese Disabled-run Enterprises 2006 on Wednesday.

According to Chen Feng, vice director of the BOCOG Marketing Department, they're now recruiting partners and sponsors globally for the 2008 Paralympic Games. The event needed support from the companies who manufacture and maintain the sports equipment and artificial limbs required by the disabled. There will be special favorable policies for companies if they become involved in the marketing of the Paralympic Games and the sponsors will enjoy the same benefits as the sponsors of the 2008 Olympics.

Chen said there were three marketing projects for the 2008 Paralympic Games. The first was a sponsorship project with three different areas – partners, sponsors and suppliers. The BOCOG hopes that domestic or foreign enterprises can provide sports equipment and artificial limbs and related domestic firms could be the suppliers of other essential items. 

The second was the franchise operation project. With authorization from the BOCOG, the enterprises involved can have their products carrying the Paralympic Games badge or the insignia of the China Paralympic Games Committee so that they may raise awareness of their businesses. 

The third one is a stamp project. Sets of Paralympic Games stamps will be published jointly with the China State Post Bureau.

At the Development Forum, several issues such as the education, employment and taxation of the disabled people, how they could be assisted with their career development and the policy trend in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) for the development of small to medium sized enterprises were discussed. 

There are now 34,000 domestic welfare enterprises for the disabled in China with 1.5 million employees including 700,000 disabled. These enterprises are responsible for the pensions and welfare of 300,000-400,000 retired disabled in the whole country. With a total of 23.726 million disabled people being employed in China, it's expected they'll have a bright future in their career development.

(China.org.cn by staff reporter Wang Zhenhong, translated by Xu Lin, August 12, 2006)