Expo float to take part in Rose Parade near LA

LOS ANGELES: Two Chinese-American groups in Los Angeles will jointly sponsor a float to promote Shanghai World Expo 2010 in the upcoming Rose Parade new year celebration, it was announced here Tuesday.

"We have secured the Shanghai Expo organizer's authorization to use its logo and mascot on our float for the 121th Rose Parade in Pasadena," Sue Zhang, president of the Roundtable of Southern California Chinese-American Organizations, told a press conference.

Zhang said that her group and the Shanghai Landers' Club, another local Chinese-American group, will jointly sponsor the Shanghai World Expo float, which is still being designed.

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According to Zhang, whose group successfully sponsored a Beijing Olympics float in the 2008 Rose Parade together with American label maker Avery Dennison, wealthy Chinese-American businessmen have so far donated enough money for designing and building the Shanghai float.

The 121th annual Rose Parade is scheduled to take place on January 1, 2010, featuring dozens of variously themed floats and spirited marching bands from across the United States and those representing foreign countries.

Since it was launched on New Year's Day in 1890 in Pasadena, a suburb town about 20 kilometer east of Los Angeles, the Rose Parade has become an international event watched by millions of people across the world through live television broadcast.

The Shanghai World Expo will take place from May 1 to October 31 next year in Shanghai, China.