In Brief: Virtual Expo gets award

Grab your newspaper copy

As many as 15 local newspapers are distributed free of cost at the Expo Garden. The publications cover various fields including local news, financial information, entertainment, science and technology and travel. Visitors can find the newspapers at the information desk and restaurants in the Expo Garden.

Garden's retail sales: 542m yuan

Full coverage:

A spokesman for the Shanghai municipal statistics bureau said retail revenue in the Expo Garden reached 542 million yuan ($80 million) in July, 2.8 percent higher than in June. Revenue from catering services stood at 317 million yuan, accounting for 54.49 percent of the total revenue in the Expo Garden in July.

Charity funds 40,000 visits

Shanghai Charity Fund has spent 8 million yuan since May to fund the visits of 40,000 underprivileged people to the Expo Garden. The visitors include poverty-stricken senior citizens, cancer patients, children of migrant workers, students and teachers from earthquake-hit regions, and disabled orphans from Africa.

Virtual Expo gets award

The virtual Expo 2010 Shanghai on www.expo.cn won a special award in a competition called "Value and Potential of Internet in China" held at the China Internet Conference 2010 in Beijing on Tuesday. Virtual tours of the Expo are getting increasingly popular after organizers launched virtual Expo passport stamps and a service called "Fast track to Pavilions in Expo Garden". By Aug 15, more than 57 million visitors had taken a virtual tour of the extravagant fair.

Many items may be auctioned

Some items displayed in the Expo pavilions may be auctioned or sold for charity, according to Shanghai Charity Fund. Diamonds from Belgium Pavilion, bicycles from Denmark Pavilion, wickers from Spain Pavilion, glass tiles from Italy Pavilion may be donated to Shanghai Charity Fund after the six-month event. The revenue from the auctioned or sold collections will go toward charity for the poor. A detailed plan for the program will be drafted in early October.

HK pavilions record 2m visits

Visitors to the Hong Kong Pavilion and Hong Kong exhibition at the Urban Best Practices Area (UBPA) totalled 2 million on Wednesday. A five-day Hong Kong Week will start on October 18 at the Baosteel Stage in the Expo site. A variety of performances by famous artists and troupes will delight the audiences, said Patrick Chan, Hong Kong's commissioner for Expo 2010.