QUALITY is a key word at this year's East China Fair and only traders who have a strong and established brand will be admitted into the country's biggest regional fair.

"With demand weak at home and abroad, we hope that products with good quality can help to whet people's consumption appetite," the Shanghai Commission of Commerce, the main organizer, said yesterday.

According to them, the fair will exhibit more than 60 brands of products which have won national awards for their quality, as well as over 700 brands honored by provincial governments. The fair will also display over 20,000 products that feature innovative functions or unique designs.

About 3,500 domestic export-oriented companies will take up 115,000 square meters of space at the fair, up from 103,500 square meters last year, the commission said.

The fair will set aside a special zone for foreign exhibitors to better boost imports. Nearly 135 overseas companies, from Japan, South Korea, India, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia, have registered to display their products.

Last year, export orders worth US$2.84 billion were clinched at the fair, up 3.38 percent from the year earlier. But the organizer is not optimistic for a better result this year as exports and imports performed badly in recent months.

In January, China's exports shed 0.5 percent from a year earlier, the first drop since November 2009. Imports fell 15 percent.

The fair's official website has attracted 4.78 million people visiting it for information and 4,000 foreign buyers from Japan, the US, Australia and Europe have registered for it.

Dubbed as the barometer for China's trade, the annual fair will run from today to Monday at the Shanghai New International Expo Center. It is backed by the Ministry of Commerce, and co-sponsored by Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi and Shandong's provincial governments, as well as Shanghai, Nanjing and Ningbo's city governments.