LIVERPOOL businesses have been urged to have their say on how the city sells itself to more than 70m visitors at the World Expo in China in 2010.

Liverpool is exhibiting in the Urban Best Practice pavilion at the Expo, which will take place in Shanghai from May to October, 2010.

The city has been offered 900 sq m of exhibition space and organisers, led by Liverpool Vision, are now pulling together the first blueprint for how to use it.

Dr Kerry Brown, executive director of the Liverpool Shanghai Partnership, has called on companies to have their say of what is included.

“We want companies to help us with our blueprint,” he said. “We want anyone with any interest in this to be partners with us.

“We want to use this Expo to push Liverpool and the North West as a prime destination for Chinese investments.”

The exhibition space will promote how Liverpool as a modern, leading city can develop and prosper while conserving its rich history as a World Heritage site.

Dr Brown said the six-month exhibition offered a “wide remit” for Liverpool to promote itself and the investment opportunities within the city.

The blueprint will be delivered during a trade delegation visit to Shanghai next month. The delegation, which will include council leader Warren Bradley, is focused on building port and air links between the two cities and generating interest among investors in Peel Holdings’ Wirral Waters and Liverpool Waters.

It aims to add an overtly commercial layer to the cultural and political partnerships which have been developing since the cities were twinned in 1999, a process which has accelerated in recent years.

Liverpool is keen to secure investment from Chinese companies, with just one investment currently in place. By contrast Wirral has three, Manchester has 16 and Newcastle has 29.

Speaking at a Professionaliverpool seminar about the business opportunities in China for the financial and professional services sector, Dr Brown identified three factors that are increasing the potential for Liverpool firms.

He said the current five-year plan is aiming to build a knowledge economy in the country, there are anxieties about the Shanghai stock exchange and the fragilities of the financial sector, and there is now a much stronger middle class, particularly in the east coast economy, which includes Shanghai.