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The Chinese Amateur Basketball Open (CBO) national finals will take centre stage in Beijing this month in the nation's biggest amateur-oriented tournament.

At least 600 hoopsters from about 50 teams will take part from September 29 to October 3.

There have been regular competitions in more than 100 areas around China from December last year to August.

Officials from the Chinese Basketball Administrative Centre (CBAC), the sport's governing body, vow to further improve the amateur basketball competition and next season will encourage retired professional players to play a major role.

"Though the 2006 season of CBO has not finished yet, we have learned lots of lessons and also benefit a lot from the reform," said Xu Minfeng, director of Development Department of CBAC.

Xu said CBO gave local associations rights to organize the competition and find sponsors.

"We adopted a new reform in CBO this year. We are dependent on local associations to organize whatever kind of amateur basketball event as a stage of CBO," said Xu. "The associations know the local situations better than us. And they have better ideas as how to host a popular event."

Further reforms will be made next year in a bid to boost the event's popularity including encouraging retired professionals to join in CBO and help lift the sport to a higher level.

Earlier this year CBO appointed Juan Antonio Samaranch, the former president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as the senior consultant.

The Spaniard sports supremo said basketball was one of his favourite sports, and was willing to contribute to the development of CBO.

The competition starts with games played between teams in different cities before moving on to provincial competitions.

The second provincial phase ran from August 1 to September 20 with the winning teams from each province qualifying for the national finals. Any Chinese citizen over the age of 18 can register in the tournament. Those non-Chinese basketball fans that have remained in China for over one year will also be able to join in the fun.

(China Daily September 20, 2006)