A regulation to promote eco-friendliness in the operation of exhibitions, enacted by the Yiwu government, passed professional review on July 16 and is expected to spread across Zhejiang province.

The regulation was first implemented in Yiwu in October 2019. As a result, the city's exhibition sites that have met green standards formulated by the regulation measured 1.08 million square meters in area in 2020, up 8.8 percent from the previous year, while waste produced by the exhibitions fell by 2,000 metric tons in total weight.

To date, Yiwu's rate of green exhibitions has risen to 75 percent.

According to an official involved in the delivery of the regulation, experts studied numerous successful examples of holding eco-friendly exhibitions at home and abroad, as well as widely sought advice from expo organizers in multiple Zhejiang cities, before forming regulations for the entire province.

"When we carried out surveys in Wenzhou and Taizhou, local exhibitors opined that the setting of green standards is both necessary and timely as it offers quantifiable guides for them to build new exhibition halls and renovate old ones, so that the sustainable development of the exhibition sector is substantially bolstered," said the official.