Olympics fever must be contagious.

Record numbers of people have put their hands up to volunteer for next year's Games, and officials predict that numbers will keep climbing.

"By Monday, about 556,000 people from home and abroad have applied," Liu Jian, director of the Beijing Olympic Games Volunteer Work Coordination Group Office, said yesterday.

Liu encouraged all Beijing citizens to volunteer for the Games as it would be an enriching experience.

About 100,000 volunteers are needed for the Beijing Olympic Games and Paralympics Games in 2008, said John Floretta, United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Programme Manager in China, citing official statistics released earlier this year.

Of them, about 95 percent will come from Beijing, while the rest will be drawn from other parts of China and the world, he said.

"That left only a handful of vacancies for the international volunteers, or about 1,000," Floretta said.

The remarks were made yesterday at the signing ceremony of a three-year project to strengthen volunteering in China through the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

The $1.4 million project will provide training to about 10,000 Olympic volunteer leaders and organize volunteer-led environmental awareness campaigns.

"Like the Olympics, volunteering is essentially and profoundly optimistic," Ad de Raad, executive coordinator of UNV said yesterday. UNV and the United Nations Development Programme in China jointly funded and organized the project.

"The world will see the remarkable dedication of volunteers at the Games next summer. Through this project, we are hoping to illustrate how the ingenuity, solidarity and creativity of volunteers can contribute to achieving the nation's development targets."