Chinese Tourism City to Host West Lake ExpoThe 2000 West Lake Expo will be held from October 20 and November 10 in Hangzhou, a famous tourism city in east China's Zhejiang Province.Xinhua learned from a news conference held in Beijing Monday that the expo will consist of exhibitions and trade fairs, symposiums and cultural performances. Twenty-three international and national exhibitions and trade fairs will cover machinery, electronics, environmental protection, ocean, human habitat environment, tourism and education. Wang Guoping, secretary of the Hangzhou Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, said that seven large international and national symposiums and conferences will also be held during the 22-day expo. The symposiums will include talks on urban environment and housing development, sponsored by the UN Center for Human Settlements, the Chinese Ministry of Construction and Hangzhou City People's Government, and conferences on national economic cooperation and high-tech development. Travelers to Hangzhou will have opportunities to enjoy the city's traditional and modern culture. A series of cultural activities will be held such as the opening ceremony performance, the Hangzhou art festival, a Chinese food festival, and silk culture show. Hangzhou, a famous tourism and historical city in China, has more than 100 tourism spots, five historical sites under state protection, and many state nature reserves and tourism zones. The city is the birthplace of Liangzhu Culture dating back more than 4,700 years ago. More than 20 million domestic and some 600,000 overseas travelers visited Hangzhou in 1999. The city's income from the tourism industry was 2,237 million US dollars, accounting for 15 percent of its GDP. The 2000 West Lake Expo will be sponsored by the Ministry of Construction, the National Tourism Administration, the State Administration of Internal Trade, the State Administration of Light Industry, the China Council for Promotion of International Trade, the Zhejiang Provincial People's Government and the Hangzhou City Government. |
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