(Yicai Global) Sept. 21 -- Companies have booked larger-than-expected exhibition spaces for this year's China International Import Expo and the number of signed up Fortune 500 exhibitors has reached the scale of last year.

Registration is basically complete for the expo which will be held in Shanghai in less than 50 days, the organizing body told Yicai Global.

The third CIIE will have a combination of online and offline events due to the Covid-19 pandemic, said Sun Chenghai, deputy director of the bureau. Negotiations and signing can be done online.

The roster includes leading global companies in the fields of pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, high-end consumer goods, automobiles and others, and dozens of companies have even applied to participate in the next three CIIEs, according to the bureau.

After inking more than 20 initial procurement agreements worth more than USD100 million during the second CIIE, Elekta decided to register for the third one, Liu Jianbin, marketing director of the Swedish precision radiation medicine firm's Chinese arm. 

The Covid-19 pandemic may have messed up many corporate and personal plans this year. But it has also made foreign firms pay more attention to the Chinese market, according to Liu.

Japan's Fujifilm has taken part in all the three expos but in the upcoming one, the tech firm will set up two special booths to showcase its solutions in epidemic prevention and fifth-generation wireless technologies. In its 400-square-meter exhibition area, the company will debut its polymerase chain reaction testing kits in China. 

Editor: Emmi Laine