GUANGZHOU: The organizing committee of the China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair) has relaxed application procedures for next week's event after companies were inconvenienced by tougher measures earlier this year.

Prospective exhibitors are no longer required to produce documentation proving they do not have criminal records when applying to attend the 104th session, as they were told to do ahead of the 103rd edition in April.

The forthcoming session will be hosted at three exhibition complexes in Guangzhou's Pazhou from next Wednesday.

"The practice for the past session was something temporary," Liang Yanfang, a press officer with the fair's organizing committee, told China Daily yesterday. "However, exhibitors and journalists are required to produce the original identification cards when they apply for passes for the forthcoming event.

"The organizing committee attaches equal importance to the safety of the fair.

"We are very strict with the qualification of the exhibitors and we won't issue one-off passes for them."

The 103rd session of the Canton Fair in April was subject to the strictest safety measures to date as Beijing tightened security ahead of the Olympic Games.

Li Jiehua, a marketing manager with a ceramics firm in Chaozhou in east Guangdong, said the laxer security procedures would make processes more convenient for exhibitors, especially those from abroad.

"I'm not a native of Chaozhou, and I would probably have to go back to my hometown in Anhui province to get it if the policy did not change," he said. "What's more, I really doubt whether the documentation worked."

The 104th session will be the first time it is held in three phases.

The first phase will be held from next Wednesday to Sunday.