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Olympic volunteer hopefuls from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan stand a better chance if they are bilingual．Priority will be given to applicants who have“special skills”and can speak languages other than English and Chinese．
“We warmly welcome those people from above-mentioned areas, who are qualified for being a volunteer, to put in an application,”Liu Jian, office director of Beijing Olympic Games Volunteer Work Coordination Group, said．
Liu made the remarks yesterday at a press conference to officially launch(開始)the volunteer recruitment(招募)drive from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign countries for the 2008 Games．
Volunteer requirements can be found at the official website www.beijing2008.cn, or by calling the hotline on 8610-12308．
Recruitment for volunteers in Beijing began on August 28, 2006．In areas outside the capital, it began on January 19 this year．
To date, more than 400,000 people have sent in applications, more than 270,000 of them from Beijing．
“According to the latest application results, we still need a lot of volunteers with foreign language skills other than English,”Li Binghua, executive vice –president of BOCOG, said．
Of course, these applicants must be able to communicate with other people in Chinese Putonghua, he said．
Volunteers will mainly be needed in eight fields depending on their skills including VIP guest liaison and language services, driving, media services, competition organization, medical treatment, and security examination．
The application websites are www.hab.gov.hk(Hong Kong), www.sport.gov.mo(Macao), www.bjtx.org(Taiwan), www.bjqb.gov.cn(overseas Chinese), and www.ebeijing.gov.cn(foreigners)．
Applications in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign countries will conclude by the end of March 2008．BOCOG will finalize the recruitment drive by the end of May 2008．
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