"We will not accept applications from individual dealers until the end of this year or the beginning of next year when sales of franchised goods increase rapidly", said Tang Yonghong, an official with the marketing department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG).

There were currently 63 franchise retailers in China, with a score of them in Beijing, said Tang.

To expand the marketing network faster, the BOCOG has approved these retailers to have their own distributors but the stores run by the franchise retailers must outnumber those run by the distributors.

The number of franchise stores would reach 10,000 before the opening of the Olympic Games, said Tang.

Chen Feng, vice marketing director with the BOCOG, said earlier this year that the number of Olympic franchise stores would be increased almost tenfold to 5,000 across China by the end of 2007.

The current 600 franchise stores, mostly in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, were insufficient to cover small and medium sized cities, said Chen.

Tang also said the BOCOG cut the prices of franchised goods by eight percent to 10 percent at the beginning of this year.

Analysts forecast sales of franchised goods would hit one billion U.S. dollars and the BOCOG's sales target was 700 million U.S. dollars, according to previous reports.