The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) will give support to its member associations to develop winter sports, said a senior OCA official here on Thursday.

Samih Moudallal, vice president of OCA, told reporters that OCAis planning to assist member associations which have no resources to develop sports like skating and skiing.

"We have a plan to assist members to create new winter sports, which many countries and regions in Asia have no resources to estabulish," said Moudallal. "But with the assistance of OCA with the new plan, we will give financial and technical support to them."

"I want to see more and more participants in the Games in the future," said the former Syrian weight-lifter, who came here to inspect the ongoing 6th Asian Winter Games.

It is the first time that all 45 OCA members have participated in the Winter Games with 26 of them fielding athletes to compete.

Countries and regions from semi-tropical, tropical or desert areas such as the Maldives and Qatar only had sports officials here.

"This time all OCA member associations participated in Changchun Games and some only had officials participating without athletes nor teams," he said. "But I promise that next Asian Winter Games in Kazakhstan see the majority of members l sending their athletes to compete in different sports."

"It is a good step to have all members here and the second stepis to compete," he added.

The Winter Games opened on Jan. 28 and runs through Sunday.

Source: Xinhua