The "Youth Business China" (YBC) program was launched in Beijing Tuesday, aimed to help young Chinese people to start their own businesses by drawing on the advanced experience of a similar international program.

The launching of the project resulted from close collaboration between the All-China Youth Federation and the Youth Business International (YBI) project over the past three years, said Zhou Qiang, first secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China.

The YBI was launched in the United Kingdom in 1983, mobilizing and uniting the business community and other social resources there to help young people who want to start their own businesses. Over the past 20 years, the YBI has aided over 60,000 young people in 35 countries.

The YBC offers China's young people services like business mentorship, professional consultancy, and access to business networks and seed money.

At the launching ceremony, the YBC got its first donation, amounting to one million yuan (about US$0.12 million), provided by a Hong Kong-based company.

As the first beneficiary of the YBC, Liu Jiangang, 25, from Shanghai, received 5,000 pounds from a British law firm at the ceremony.

The project is significant in China because it can help to solve the unemployment problem in a country with a huge population of young people, said Han Qide, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, at the ceremony.

(Xinhua News Agency November 26, 2003)