Shanghai Expo planners launched a two-month ad campaign in New York City yesterday, the first commercial promotion for the world event in a foreign country. 

The promotion, organised by China's National Tourism Bureau office in New York, will cover more than 170 double-decker sightseeing buses and public vehicles this summer in the Big Apple.

The sightseeing buses will say "Welcome to Shanghai - 2010 Expo" as well as show images of the Bund and Pudong New Area. The ads are said to be almost three meters high and 10 meters wide.

Each bus, with between 800 and 1,000 passengers per day, will visit New York's major tourist destinations between 8am and 11pm daily.

Destinations such as Times Square, Central Park, Fifth Avenue, the Empire State Building, Broadway, Rockefeller Center, Lincoln Center, University of Columbia and Wall Street will be on the bus routes.

More expo ads will also appear on public buses in the Manhattan area. The adverts are 0.76-meters tall and 6.1-meters wide and are expected to reach more than 90 percent of the overall population in the area in eight weeks.

The New York City promotion will be followed by a series of promotion campaigns for the event in the next two years.