(BEIJING, June 13) -- According to the overall arrangement of the preparatory work for the Beijing Olympics, the recruitment of city volunteers will officially start on June 18, 2007.

The news was disclosed at a mobilization meeting on Wednesday.

The city volunteer project is one of the six volunteer projects for the Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, the others being the "Towards the Olympics" Voluntary Service Project, the BOCOG Pre-Games Volunteer Project, the Games-time Volunteer Project, the Social Volunteer Project and the Olympic Volunteer Work Legacy Transformation Project.

To ensure the success of the Olympics in 2008, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) has planned a series of test events under the theme "Good Luck Beijing,", which will start in the second half of 2007. The city volunteers will work at major transport hubs, commercial networks, tourist attractions, various positions around the training and competition venues and the athletes' hotels.

Beijing started recruiting Games-time volunteers on August 28, 2006. Although only about 100,000 Games-time volunteers are needed, more than 520,000 people had registered as of June 11. Among them over 300,000 are from Beijing, 190,000 from other provinces and municipalities, and 20,000 from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas.