A ski motorcycle is on display at the 2015 Harbin Cold Zone Expo, which takes place from Jan 5 to 8 in the capital of Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province. [Photo by Yang Haiquan/hlj.people.cn]

Government officials and business representatives from home and abroad gathered at the International Convention and Exhibition and Sports Center in Harbin to talk about cold region issues of resource utilization, low-carbon business and economic development at the 2015 Harbin Cold Zone Expo, which takes place from Jan 5 to 8.

Song Xibin, mayor of Harbin, greeted guests and introduced the history and development of the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival at the reception dinner on Jan 5.

Originating from the Ice Lantern Show in 1985, the Harbin Ice Festival has become one of the world's four largest ice and snow festivals, along with the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan, the Quebec Winter Carnival in Canada and Norway's Ski Festival.

"Under the influence of the ice festival, the cold zone expo is becoming an important platform for guests from home and abroad to extend exchanges and enhance cooperation. We hope government delegations and exhibitors can get familiar with Harbin through the expo and get to know that the ‘Ice City’ will extend broad space for cooperation," said Song.

Robots serve food for customers at the 2015 Harbin Cold Zone Expo, which takes place from Jan 5 to 8 in the capital of Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province. [Photo by Yang Haiquan/hlj.people.cn]

As a major economic and trade sub-event of the 31st Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival, the cold zone expo aims to promote cooperation and exchanges in such fields as technology, culture and tourism among cold-zone cities in the world.

With an area of 30,000 square meters, the expo attracted exhibitors from 12 countries including the US, Russia and Denmark with products in building heating and lighting, robots, cloud computing, snow equipment and other winter supplies.

Matchmakings for enterprises in Harbin and Taiwan, forums focusing on logistics development of cold-zone cities and developing Harbin into a low carbon city, as well as symposiums on snow removal equipment technology will be held during the event.

Animal embroideries are on exhibit at the 2015 Harbin Cold Zone Expo, which takes place from Jan 5 to 8 in the capital of Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province. [Photo by Yang Haiquan/hlj.people.cn]