Taiwan hasn't participated in a World Expo for nearly three decades. But 2010 has marked a bright return to the Expo at this year's event in the Chinese city of Shanghai. But, as BON's Tom Spender now reports, the question of whether Taiwan's pavilion represents a country or a province is one best left unasked.

The 10th Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition opened on Friday in the south China city of Guangzhou, featuring the participation of all major Japanese car brands.

If anyone doubts the significance of the world expo, don’t tell that to the Chinese. In the wake of the global financial crisis, China has committed to organizing the largest-ever world expo.

Once called the world’s fair, the numbers surrounding next year’s event in Shanghai are staggering. China will spend about 4.2 billion dollars staging the expo, more, in fact than was spent for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Expo organizers expect 70 million people to attend the 6-month-long festival including about 3.5 million visitors from overseas. Compare this to the last world expo, which was held Japan in 2005, and attracted slightly over 22 million visitors.

As the opening day of the 2010 World Exposition draws ever closer preparations in the city of Shanghai have moved into high gear. But as far as cars moving around the city are concerned you're more likely to be in low gear as already bad traffic congestion gets worse by the day. Now city officials and traffic experts are working hard to resolve this.

How do you get millions of Shanghai commuters to their jobs - and millions of tourists to the World Expo? Well, as the opening day of World Exposition 2010 on May 1st looms, that's just the question members of Shanghai's Municipal Committee have posed themselves. And they've come up with a number of innovative solutions aimed at achieving both goals.

Committee member - Zuo Xuejin – has suggested staggering office hours so Shanghai residents can go to work at different time to avoid traffic peaks.

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Carat Security Group is one of many luxury automakers looking to break into China’s burgeoning auto market this week. The Belgian international leader in commercial armored vehicles has announced its participation in the upcoming Shanghai Auto Show in conjunction with a new business plan aimed at upper class Chinese consumers.