KUNNMING, Oct. 19(Xinhuanet)-- China's tin city of Gejiu in southwestern Yunnan Province will hold its first international tin culture tourism festival from November 18 to 22, a local official said Wednesday.

The five-day festival will feature a string of activities, suchas lantern exhibition, aerodonetics and fire balloon show, forum on tin culture, trade fair and performances by a famous Vietnamese art troupe, said Wang Pixun, an official of the Gejiu city government.

The city will receive an expected mumber of 10,000 officials, delegations, business people and tourists from France, Poland, the United States, Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong and other countries and regions, Wang said.

Gejiu, known as the Capital of Tin in China, 280 km away from the provincial capital Kunming and 170 km from Vietnam, is one of the first places that manufactured tin in the world and is the biggest tin production and distribution centerin China.

The city's tin reserve accounts for 27 percent of the world's total, statistics show. It manufactures 50,000 tons of tin each year, taking up one quarter of the total output in the world. Enditem