The 28th Beijing International Book Fair is due to open on Tuesday, both offline and online, becoming the first large-scale international book fair with offline events since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pakistan is this year's guest of honor, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties with the country.

"Due to the pandemic, we held the first online fair last year. Also from last year, we have been exploring how book fairs can break the limits of time and space to continuously promote communication and cooperation in the publishing industry," said Lin Liying, deputy general manager of China National Publications Import and Export (Group) Corp, the organizer of the fair.

"So the combination of the in-person fair and online platforms will become a prominent characteristic for this year's fair," she said.

About 2,200 exhibitors from 105 countries and regions, including, for the first time, those representing Algeria, Laos, Palestine, Angola, Jamaica, Nigeria, Denmark and Finland, have registered for the five-day show, the second-largest of its kind in the world in terms of scale.

More than two-thirds of the exhibitors are from overseas, including professionals from 57 Belt and Road Initiative partner countries and regions and 13 top international publishing organizations. In total, the fair will feature 300,000 book titles.

About 1,600 exhibitors, including more than 800 from overseas represented by local agencies, will attend the show physically at venues such as the China International Exhibition Center in Shunyi district and more than 20 bookstores in the city. Others will be present via the fair's online platforms.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the book fair will present special exhibitions on books by President Xi Jinping and related works, books about the centenary of the Party, and the winning books of the 5th Chinese Government Award for Publishing.

As one of the important events during the book fair, the awarding ceremony of the 15th Special Book Award of China will be held in Beijing on Tuesday to honor 15 writers, translators and publishers from around the world, who have made prominent contributions to promoting Chinese culture overseas.