Faced with mounting losses at home because of declining interest in its theme parks and a slump in ad revenues entertainment and media giant Walt Disney is looking to expand its business overseas, especially in Asia. It launched a Chinese Web portal on Sunday. At a news conference in Beijing on Sunday, actors dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse joined Disney executives as they unveiled the site www.disney.com.cn.

Disney, through the site, plans to take advantage of the world-wide popularity of its characters. The site will be linked to SeaRainbow's 17 Chinese language web sites, including popular game destinations ourgame.com and asiagame.com.

SeaRainbow is a partner with China Telecom, which controls 82 per cent of the country's bandwidth connections.

It is not clear whether Disney funded the Web site or when it expected the site to break even.

In a related development, reports say Disney is also planning to open a theme park in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics.

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