As the Taiwan Pavilion greeted its 400,000th visitor Tuesday, pavilion officials said that the popular 650-square-meter structure would be up for sale as early as next month as the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai starts to wind down.

Local Shanghainese Gu Wen was gifted 50 pairs of shoes by Miss Sofi, the largest sponsor of the pavilion, a present worth some 25,000 yuan ($3,961) that made her two-and-a-half-hour line up well worth the while, she said, adding that she plans to visit Taiwan during the National Day holiday in October.

According to Walter Yeh, director of the Taiwan Pavilion, the structure has been celebrating every increment of 100,000 visitors passing through it doors as a gesture to thank visitors for waiting outside every day.

Pavilion officials said Tuesday that the steady flow of visitors to the structure was a testament to how interested people are in the "Taiwanese brand," a product that will be open to potential buyers in the coming months.

"We'll likely open up the bidding next month, or in October," Chih- Kang Wang, executive director of Taiwan's external trade development council, told the Global Times Tuesday. "It's not the steel and cement that's worth a lot - it's the brand that the value lies in."

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