The annual cross-Straits trade fair targeted at scientific and technological results opened Sunday in the capital city of east China's Fujian Province as scheduled amid fears of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Fuzhou, with no SARS case reported, has built a reliable protection system to combat a possible outbreak of the epidemic.

As part of the protection measures, the trade fair venue has been armed with a set of anti-SARS equipment including ultraviolet air sterilizers, and every attendee at the five-day event would have his or her body temperature tested at the entrance.

On Sunday nearly 10,000 people, at home and from overseas, attended the opening ceremony of the annual trade fair, and the city had 25 major overseas-funded projects signed the same day, with a contracted foreign investment of 330 million US dollars.

Most of the projects were productive and, the largest one, a zinc-coated steel plate project, involved a contracted foreign investment of 75 million US dollars.

One of the two major international trade fairs held once a year in Fujian Province, the cross-Straits trade fair has a history of 10 years, and has clinched over 3,000 deals involving nearly 10 billion US dollars of contracted foreign investment.

The event was jointly sponsored by the provincial government, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and CITIC Industrial Bank.

More than 500 businesses established over 1,500 booths at the fair.

(Xinhua News Agency May 18, 2003)