Haikou /China/, June 15. /TASS/. The Second China International Consumer Products Expo will be held in the city of Haikou in the southern Chinese province of Hainan, July 26-30. This was reported by Xinhua News Agency on Wednesday.

The total area of the exposition will amount to 100 thousand square meters, 80 thousand of which will be occupied by foreign participants. According to the organizers, the exhibition will feature 1.3 thousand brands from 58 countries and regions. France will be the guest of honor at this year's Expo, which will be held in Hainan International Exhibition Center.

The first China International Consumer Products Expo was held in Haikou May 7-10, 2021. It was attended by representatives of 70 countries and regions, more than 2.6 thousand premium brands and more than 1.5 thousand companies. The event attracted about 240 thousand visitors. In terms of its scale, it was the largest consumer goods exhibition in the Asia-Pacific region.

The proposal to organize the exhibition was included in the program of building a free trade port in Hainan, which was published June 1, 2020. September 20 the same year, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council of the PRC officially approved it. The organizers are the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China and the Hainan Government. It is China's first international exhibition dedicated to consumer goods.

The symbol is called Yuanxiao. It looks like a heart formed by two Hainan gibbons - a rare species of primates that live only in this Chinese province and are on the verge of extinction.

The Chinese authorities attach great importance to the Expo and have presented it as an important part of the effort to build a free trade port on Hainan. The program for this project includes the transformation of the island into a special customs zone. The national government expects to complete the free port by 2025, at which point the island will have a free trade and investment firmly system in place.

By 2035 the free port and its model will take a more mature shape. Hainan will have free trade and investment, cross-border capital flows, travel, and freight transportation by that time.