Hanover, Germany  - A successful Hanover Fair, the world's biggest annual industrial machinery expo, offered an upbeat picture this week for the world economic outlook, fair chief Sepp Heckmann said Friday.

Amid talk of worldwide economic crisis, "a different signal has come from the Hanover Fair," he told reporters. Companies who exhibited at the fair "spoke of full order books for 2008 and a good outlook for 2009," he added.

The five-day fair, at which some of Germany's key exporters show their machinery, had another giant of the world machinery trade, Japan, as its partner nation this year. Companies from 62 nations showed their products.

With just a few hours to go before the fair closed, Heckmann said visitor numbers had surged 30 per cent this year compared with 2006, the best year for comparison, to approximately 200,000.

Among the top 10 countries of origin of the visitors were China, India and Japan, Heckmann added. (dpa)