The Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) has "targeted" the first batch of partners, officials said in Beijing on Wednesday.

Yuan Bin, deputy director of the marketing department of BOCOG, told a press conference Wednesday that a lot of domestic and foreign enterprises have shown keen interest in sponsoring the 2008 Games since the marketing program was launched in early September.

"We are in the process of selecting the first group of partners," said Yuan.

"The candidate partners are from the four categories, including automobile, banking, fixed telecommunication and mobile communications," she added.

Yuan also dropped a hint that the domestic partner in a certain field is likely to pay as much as the TOP sponsors. TOP sponsors usually pay over 50 million US dollars each for the quadrennial Olympic Games.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has signed nine of 12 TOP sponsors backing the Beijing Games worldwide, including Coca-Cola, General Electric and Visa.

Later this year, BOCOG will launch sponsorship programs, which include Beijing 2008 Partner, Beijing 2008 Sponsor and Beijing 2008 Supplier, according to the organizers.

BOCOG will also manage licensing programs that will authorize companies to produce and sell products with the official Olympic logo.

(Xinhua News Agency November 13, 2003)