DALIAN: China's largest fashion gala, the 2003 Dalian International Fashion Festival, opened on Saturday in this major port city in Northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Thousands of foreign visitors, who are garment professionals, revelled over the weekend with city residents and performers from Russia, Thailand and Japan and those in costumes of China's ethnic minorities.

At the same time, about 450 enterprises from 18 countries and regions such as France, Germany, England, Italy and Japan showed their latest designs during the Dalian International Garment Fair, the only garment event in China recognized by the Union des Foires Internationales, an international exhibition alliance.

"The Dalian International Fashion Festival, since it started in 1988, has served as an exchange platform for Dalian to connect with the outside world," Dalian Mayor Xia Deren said at the festival's opening ceremony.

Mike Moore, former director-general of the World Trade Organization, said he hopes the garments made in Dalian will be as famous as those from Paris and Milan in the near future due to the fashion festival.

A former New Zealand prime minister, Moore also expects China's garment industry will begin using more fabrics and wool from his country.

As scheduled, world famous garment producer Ports 1961 and Saga Furs of Scandinavia - a global organization dealing in fur - will hold an autumn/winter release and a fur show during the festival, said Wei Xiaopeng, vice-executive chairmen of the event's organizing committee.

In an effort to upgrade China's fashion design concepts, the Dalian Cup China Youth Design Contest is being held. It has attracted about 1,000 competitors from all parts of the country and 44 of them have been chosen to take part in the final.

At the Dalian Xinghai Exhibition and Conference Centre, more than a quarter of the participants are overseas enterprises, said Li Shuzhen, director of the Dalian International Garment Fair (DIGF) office.

"We follow all international practices in organizing the fair and try our best to help participants do business," said Li.

Besides garment manufacturers, DIGF has invited more than 3,000 traders to the fair from all over the world.

"By connecting garment producers and traders, we can enlarge the trade chain and promote trends, enterprise management and exports," Li said.

The event ends today.

(HK Edition 09/15/2003 page7)