More new companies and start-ups are expected to participate in this year's China International Import Expo compared to the fifth one, with an initial planning of 500 start-ups and projects, said a spokesperson during its media briefing on Sunday.

The exhibition area for those startups is planned to be 5,000 square meters, tripled from 1,500 square meters for the 5th CIIE, said Fang Hui, general manager of the CIIE department of the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) Co Ltd.

Preparations for the event are underway and the planned business exhibition area remains at 360,000 square meters, Fang said at the briefing, ThePaper.cn reported.

Over 260,000 square meters of the business exhibition area have already been contracted so far, an increase of more than two percentage points year-on-year.

This year's CIIE, set to be held offline from Nov 5 to 10, will increase its focus on the special section of innovation incubation, in addition to continuing the major exhibition areas for food, automobiles, technological equipment, consumer goods, medical products and trade in services.

The expo, as a preferred platform for global new products and cutting-edge technologies regarded by exhibitors, has helped achieve a cumulative transaction volume of over $340 billion over the past five years.

New tailored measures have been adopted in this year's CIIE for each enterprise as a service guarantee to solve the problems of participating exhibitors.

Among those services providers, the Bonded Logistics Center (Type B) in Hongqiao Business District has provided convenient guarantee services for exhibitors for four consecutive years since 2019.

The bonded logistics center, with two bonded warehouses and a total construction area of nearly 50,000 square meters, has managed the exhibition goods worth nearly $57.37 million for exhibitors from more than 30 countries and regions.

Since August 2022, it has been offering a new business model for cross-border e-commerce retail import. By the end of April 2023, nearly $3.93 million worth of goods from countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative have entered the Chinese market through the model.