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)