SHANGHAI - The city will be home for a national book fair to be held at the Shanghai Exhibition Center on August 17 to present audience 150,000 kinds of books from the country's 500 publishing houses.

Kan Ninghui, deputy director of the Shanghai Press and Publishing Bureau, said the Shanghai Bookfair, held once a year, has been upgraded into a national fair since this year due to its successful performance in the past seven years.

The one-week fair, co-sponsored by the Shanghai municipal government and the General Administration of Press and Publication, will be a strong stimulus to the ongoing national reading campaign which aims to let more people read books, said Kan.

"We have been trying our best in the past years to turn the fair into an inseparable part of the campaign, making it closer to common readers,'' he said.

In order to let more readers?take part in?the event, the fair, covering an area of 22,000 square meters, will hold 440 activities this time for audience, including reading forums, issues of new books, introduction of works, autography of authors, cultural lectures and readings of classical works.

Of the activities, he said 40 will be held in the city's districts and suburbs to popularize cultural knowledge and reading styles among citizens.

During the fair, authors will come to the spot to autograph their 109 kinds of new books. About 300 celebrities from home and abroad, including world-famous scholars, scientists, experts and professors, will give 140 lectures to audience, said Kan.

He said the fair will spend a considerable sum of funds setting up a 2,100-square-meter hall for more than 10,000 kinds of kids' books from dozens of the world's well-known publishing houses.

"We want to let children know more about the world by reading these books, which will be echoed by about 100 cultural activities targeted at young readers,'' the deputy director said.