A worker loads disaster-relief materials bound for Italy at Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport in Zhejiang province on Wednesday. The materials were donated by people from throughout the province. WANG JIANLONG/FOR CHINA DAILY

The 2020 Guangzhou International Epidemic Prevention Material and Equipment Fair will kick off next week, aiming to play a role in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yang Yong, director of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Guangzhou Sub-Council, said more than 400 companies, including 160 from Guangzhou, Guangdong province, will display their latest technologies, equipment and products, including medical reagents, protective suits, respirators, disinfectants, ventilators, blood gas analyzers, sprayers, masks and other medical equipment. The companies want to expand trade and cooperation with their foreign counterparts during the two-day event, which happens on June 10 and 11.

“The fair not only demonstrates the country’s strong momentum in economic recovery but also the urgent need for both the supply and demand side of anti-epidemic materials to reduce transaction costs,” Yang said at a news conference in Guangzhou on Tuesday.

Yang said more than 5,000 international buyers have registered to attend the fair, which will be held in an exhibition floor space of more than 36,000 square meters at the Guangzhou Poly World Trade Expo Pavilion in the city’s Haizhu district.

“Many of them will come to Guangzhou with shopping lists in their pockets,” he said.

Meanwhile more than 56 foreign chambers of commerce, organizations and companies in Guangzhou have also sent their shopping lists to the organizing committee of the fair to purchase anti-epidemic products during the fair, he added.

The fair, which has been in preparation for more than two weeks, is the first to be held in the southern metropolis in the post COVID-19 period.