The China Shenyang International Horticultural Exposition opened on Sunday in the northeastern province of Liaoning, with more than 2,500 guests from home and abroad present at the opening ceremony.

The exposition, with the theme of "man live in harmony with nature", is scheduled to last six months and expected to attract 10 million visitors from home and abroad, said mayor Yang Yazhou of provincial capital Shenyang.

The venue of the expo, the Shenyang International Horticultural Garden, boasts 980 varieties of trees and more than 7,000 species of flowers, said the expo's organizing committee.

The garden covers an area of 246 hectares, featuring a 125-meter-tall lily-shaped sculpture and a 12,000-square-meter rose hall, which boasts more than 3,500 varieties of roses from Japan, India, Russia, the Netherlands, France, the United States, Bolivia, Australia and Kenya.

This is the second time China has held the world-class gathering for horticulture. Kunming, capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, hosted a similar event in 1999.

Ismail Amat, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, Li Guixian, vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Doeke Faber, president of the Association of International Horticultural Producers, and diplomats from 18 countries attended the opening ceremony.

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