Foreign companies with disabled Chinese on the payroll will qualify for tax rebates from next year.

The maximum tax rebate per disabled worker will be 35,000 yuan (US$4,550) a year. Meanwhile, salaries of disabled workers will be exempted from employees income tax.

Companies whose work force comprises more than 25 percent of disabled workers will be eligible for rebates on both income and value-added tax, according to the new policy announced by the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation (SAT).

Those with less than 25 percent of disabled employees will only get income tax rebates.

China has issued a series of preferential tax policies since the 1980s to promote the employment of disabled people.

But a SAT official said that current policies had left many private and foreign companies out in the cold, unable to qualify for tax rebates.

The new policy, which will apply nationwide from next month, is aimed at "creating a favorable taxation environment for fair competition and promoting employment for disabled people," the official said.

Statistics show that China has nearly 83 million disabled people, with only 22.7 million in employment and about 8.6 million officially listed in unemployment statistics.