(Yicai Global) July 26 -- The Comprehensive Country Exhibition, a key exhibition of the China International Import Expo that serves as a vital platform for host diplomacy, will be held offline at this year’s sixth CIIE.

After being held online for two consecutive years, the Country Exhibition will return to physical venues this year, Sun Chenghai, deputy director general of the CIIE Bureau, said at a press conference for the 100-day countdown to the expo today. The China pavilion will cover an area of 2,500 square meters, a new record high, he added.

This year’s CIIE will be held in Shanghai between Nov. 5 and Nov. 10. The business exhibition area will be split into six sections -- food and agricultural products, automobile, intelligent industry and information technology, consumer goods, medical equipment and healthcare products, and trade in services -- Sun noted.

So far, 360,000 square meters of exhibition area have already been booked, according to Sun. 

Many Fortune 500 companies and other industry leaders have already signed up for the sixth CIIE, exceeding the number of last year, Sun added. French makeup giant L’Oréal, German home appliance maker BSH Home Appliances, multinational accounting firms Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and PricewaterhouseCoopers, and 20 other companies have already signed up for the sixth and seventh CIIE.

The number of small and medium enterprises that signed up to the CIIE for the first time this year exceeded 500, Sun said.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione