The 20th China Harbin International Economic and Trade Fair will open on Monday with 25 percent more booths amid the global economic downturn, said fair organizers.

"The number of booths, the attendants and the projects have all been out of our expectation," said Sha Yuchao, the fair's spokesman.

The 20th fair has 3,001 booths, one quarter more than last year, including 306 booths for overseas exhibitors from 17 countries such as Russia, Belarus, Korea, Japan, Holland, Australia, America, Germany, India, Thailand and Cuba, Sha said.

Twenty-two companies of the world's Fortune 500 will attend the fair, including Nestle, Carrefour, Canon and Microsoft, he said.

As of Sunday, the fair had attracted 50 purchase delegations from 26 countries and regions plus China's Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The opening ceremony was held on late Sunday. The fair that runs from June 15 to 19 will have 58 promotion activities over the whole week.

The first Harbin International Economic and Trade Fair was held in 1990. The fair has become China's widow to Russia and other eastern Asian countries.

The overseas turnover of the 19th fair reached 10.59 billion U.S. dollars and the domestic turnover exceeded 100 billion yuan (about 14.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2008.