China's oldest and largest trade fair is bracing for a new form of online exhibition this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Canton Fair kicked off on Monday and will last for 10 days.

Visitors talk outside of China Import and Export Fair venue on April 15, 2019. (Photo by VCG)

The Canton Fair, also known as the China Import and Export Fair, was held every spring and autumn in Guangzhou, capital of southern China's Guangdong Province, since its founding in 1957, and has been seen as a barometer of China's foreign trade.

This year's online session of the fair, its 127th edition, affirms the country's commitment to free trade and the multilateral trading system in tandem with virus containment measures.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has hampered the global economy, the World Trade Organization expected this year's global trade to fall by between 13 percent and 32 percent.

The fair, including 50 exhibition areas based on 16 categories of commodities, will attract some 25,000 Chinese enterprises, which can present their products in various forms such as images, videos and 3D formats, according to organizers.

This year the Canton Fair offers around-the-clock services, including online exhibitions, promotion, business docking and negotiations.

Meanwhile, exhibitors are jumping on the live-streaming bandwagon to accelerate digital transformation, while some enterprises move the studio to their workshops to exhibit assembly lines for customers worldwide.

This year the fair also exempts exhibition fees for enterprises to cope with the impact of the pandemic.

The Canton Fair has lowered the exhibition fees for many sessions to relieve pressure on firms and exempted booth fees for enterprises from poverty-stricken areas in recent years, saving over two billion yuan (about 283 million US dollars) for enterprises.