Beijing had its day with the Olympic Games – now it's Shanghai's turn.

The gigantic World Expo is an innovation extravaganza taking place in China's business capital, with countries and corporations from all over the world exhibiting their most cutting-edge products.

Set to run for 6 months, the Expo's budget eclipses that even of the Olympics.

Its official cost is $28 billion but some estimate the total investment may be as much as $95 billion, taking into account huge infrastructure projects including new highways and subway lines.

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If anyone doubts the significance of the world expo, don’t tell that to the Chinese. In the wake of the global financial crisis, China has committed to organizing the largest-ever world expo.

Once called the world’s fair, the numbers surrounding next year’s event in Shanghai are staggering. China will spend about 4.2 billion dollars staging the expo, more, in fact than was spent for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Expo organizers expect 70 million people to attend the 6-month-long festival including about 3.5 million visitors from overseas. Compare this to the last world expo, which was held Japan in 2005, and attracted slightly over 22 million visitors.

This year's Shanghai world expo is getting closer. And the organizers aren't the only ones busy preparing for the event. Hundreds of Chinese families are also getting ready to welcome foreign visitors to their home.

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The multi-billion dollar Expo could bring bigger economic benefits to Shanghai than the Olympics bought to Beijing two years ago.

That's what some economists here are predicting. They point out that the Exp runs for SIX MONTHS, 10 times longer than the games. And organizers forecast it's going to draw 10 times as many visitors.