'April and October are both traditional fair seasons; in April, businesses are getting ready for the gift-buying seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas,' she said.

Spring fairs also attract a lot of buyers who regularly attend the Chinese Export Commodities Fair (also known as Canton Fair), founded in 1957 and held twice a year. Products featured at the Canton Fair include machinery and electronics goods.

The spring electronics fair will be followed almost immediately by the Gifts and Premium Fair, which also showcases a considerable amount of consumer electronics. Overseas buyers now have the option to browse several fairs at once.

Handling one more trade fair in a year is no challenge to GVG, which has experience in major events such as the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the largest of such fairs in the United States, and Internationale Funkausstellung in Berlin, which is Europe's biggest.

GVG also participated in the Qingdao Trade Fair for many years, and once toured four shows in a year.

Ms Lau said it was a positive that the new fair had a focus on hi-tech computer technology. 'DVD technology has a lot of connections with computers; people can now plug the SIM card from their digital camera into a DVD and view the pictures on their television set, or even burn them onto a DVD. More DVD machines will work closely with computers.'

At this year's fair, GVG is showcasing one of the thinnest DVD machines at 3.8cm and new technologies such as HighMAT and DivX.

Microsoft developed the HighMAT software programme that helps a PC communicate with a DVD device. With the software installed, the user can create a HighMAT format video and play it on a DVD player that supports it. Information such as full song names, artist titles, album names and genre can all be accessed with the remote control.

A new range of functions is also provided through a user-friendly, on-screen manual. When the technology becomes popular, it will allow users to build their own digital music and video collections and play them back on DVD players, CD players or car stereos.

DivX, on the other hand, is a technology that allows speedy and high-quality downloading of video from the internet. Some new DVD machines by Ms Lau's company are equipped to play video in this compressed format. Some industry insiders estimate that up to half of all DVD players will be DivX-compatible by the end of this year.

Ms Lau also said that with the fair's hi-tech focus, buyers who were looking for state-of-the-art products, mostly from Europe and the US, would be interested in attending.

'The DVD markets in Europe and the US are quite saturated, so buyers from those regions would look for DVD machines that aren't just DVD machines. They want ones with new functions and are willing to pay for them,' she said.

'Buyers from newly developed markets such as the Middle East and India would look at price first and put quality in the backseat. It is hard for us to lower the prices too much since each machine costs US$8 to $10 alone just to get licences for Dolby and other functions.'

HighMAT and DivX are still in their early stage and Ms Lau admitted that her company was exploring them mostly for brand-building to keep a finger on the pulse of new electronics.

But one technology that her company really banked on was recordable DVD machines.

'Advertisements for recordable DVD machines by major companies like Panasonics and Sony are already out, and people are thinking of buying,' she said.

Although GVG is only taking 25 square metres of space at the spring fair, less than the firm usually takes in October, its location in the centre of Hall 1 is expected to be one of the busiest spots.

Ms Lau said her company expected to generate as much business in the next four days as it did at past electronic fairs and was confident it would grow bigger.

GVG also sells its own brand-name products on the mainland, but for now the company's most lucrative business is still in OEM (original equipment manufacturing) for European and US clients.