The 9th China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy) opens in Shanghai today, attracting over 300 international game developers and exhibitors, the largest scale in its history.

Leading international game companies at this 60,000-sqaure meter ChinaJoy exhibition space include Autodesk from California, US, Bianfeng.com from Hangzhou, China, and Gamigo, from Hamburg, Germany.

Ivan Fernandez Lobo, director of Gamelab Conference at the 9th China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference. [Photo by Zhang Jing/China Daily]

"This is our first presence in China," says Ivan Fernandez Lobo, director of Gamelab Conference, a Spanish games association based in Madrid.

Lobo says Spain has the fourth biggest gaming retail market in Europe after Germany, UK and France. He hopes to advice the Spanish government to get in touch with the emerging gaming industry in China.

"China has the fastest growing gaming market in the world," says Kim Hyun-Mln, chief executive of Neoact Co., a Korean online game and solution provider.

"ChinaJoy is like a dreamland for me," says Xiao Xiao, a 17-year-old boy, who took a four-hour train from Nanjing to Shanghai the day before for the game expo. Xiao has been playing for five rounds on a new game put forward by Bianfeng.com and cannot pull himself away from it.

"Our competitive competency is interaction," says Pan Enlin, chief executive of Bianfeng.com. Pan hopes to take full advantage of ChinaJoy by bringing a first hand experience to its users with their new games,

It is estimated that the online games market in China exceeds an annual output of over 10 billion yuan. Some 200,000 people are expected to visit the four-day comprehensive gaming expo.