The world's first global digital trade expo will be held at the Hangzhou International Expo Center from March 23 to 27 in Zhejiang province, highlighting development trends in the global digital trade, China's development achievements and Zhejiang's practical explorations.

During the expo, digital cultural tourism, digital consumption, digital technology and cross-border e-commerce will be brought into focus.

As the only national-level professional exhibition dedicated to the theme of digital trade in China, about 400 professional participants will be invited to attend the expo online and offline, including leaders of international organizations like the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), some ambassadors and consulates, well-known scholars and entrepreneurs at home and abroad.

So far, nearly 21,000 visitors have registered and 744 exhibitors have applied to attend, among them 90 leading enterprises and institutions and 14 of the world's top 500 companies.

The expo has gathered more than 800 leading companies in domestic digital trade — including China Unicom, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, Baidu, JD.com, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China and iFLYTEK — to show the achievements of digital trade development in China, along with Zhejiang's advanced explorations.

Meanwhile, some enterprises and institutions will release their latest products at the expo, including the "digital torch" by the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee and the millimeter-wave radar with self-developed chips from Huawei.

The G20 Digital Economy Development and Cooperation Initiative was endorsed by G20 leaders during the 2016 summit in Hangzhou, and the initiative will be published to strengthen cooperation between more countries.

In addition, some major research results, standards and rules will be released — such as the White Paper on Digital Trade Standardization released by Zhijiang Laboratory.

The Digital Trade Rules and Standards Summit Forum will kick off during the expo. It is of great importance to the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) and the Development of the Global Digital Economy, with representatives of relevant institutions of DEPA member countries and domestic experts invited to discuss the promotion of high-quality development of the digital economy and digital trade under the DEPA framework

Interactivity for attendees and exhibitors will be realized by scanning a code, which is supported by a unified platform, to get marketing information and exhibition data in real time.

Fang Xiaoying in Hangzhou contributed to this story.