Canton Fair sees record participation
Trade show draws huge number of buyers, vendors amid full resumption of on-site activities
The China Import and Export Fair, which kicked off on April 15 and runs through May 5, will help global businesses benefit from Chinese manufacturers and create a platform for overseas companies to enter the Chinese market, executives and experts said.
The event, also known as the Canton Fair, is held twice a year in Guangzhou, capital of South China’s Guangdong province. With the full resumption of on-site activities, the number of Chinese exhibitors has soared at the latest trade show, as it accommodated a record 34,933 companies, compared with 25,000 in the previous edition.
A total of 370,000 offline visits were registered on the first day of the 133rd China Import and Export Fair, with 67,000 of those being foreign vendors and buyers, according to the organizers.
The fair also has in place online services for product promotion and matching and business negotiations, enabling both Chinese and international businesses to land orders remotely. The online exhibitions tallied 410,000 visits on April 15.
Apart from the nearly 35,000 enterprises from China and abroad attending the trade fair on-site, more than 39,000 companies are taking part in the event fair online. A total of 3 million new products are being displayed for global and domestic buyers.
The semiannual fair is considered a major gauge of China’s foreign trade. Exporters are keen to expand their reach to overseas clients by showcasing their latest product models at the three-phase, online-and-offline fair, with each phase lasting five days.
Gao Lingyun, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of World Economics and Politics, said there was a wide variety of China products featured at the fair, which were of high quality and well priced and provided people worldwide with an abundance of affordable consumer goods.
Domestic manufacturers, especially those from China’s manufacturing and export hubs, such as Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong and Fujian provinces, are more optimistic about their business prospects now than in the past two years, hoping that face-toface interactions with potential foreign clients will bring them more business orders.
More than 670 companies from Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, are managing 1,553 booths at the Canton Fair, a record for both the number of participating companies and the number of booths, according to the city’s bureau of commerce.
For instance, Wenzhou’s companies set up new display areas to showcase the city’s modern textile and apparel industry cluster, footwear export base, foreign trade transformation and upgrading base for smart locks.
“We attach great importance to the trade promotional role of the Canton Fair and hope to further diversify our sales channels through this platform,” said Jin Jinting, president of Wenzhou-based Zhejiang Jindeli Electrical Appliances Co Ltd.
The company, Jin said, received expressions of interest from existing as well as prospective customers
from countries such as Germany, Mexico and Russia on the first day of the event. If such approaches get converted into orders, business worth over $6 million will materialize.
Such optimism is also shared by Chen Dexing, president of Wenzhou Kanger Crystallite Utensils Co Ltd, a glass and ceramic-ware manufacturer with more than 1,500 employees.
“Participating in the Canton Fair will help us gain more orders for the second half of this year,” said Chen.
Eager to promote local brands globally, Suzhou, a major export city in Jiangsu province, announced that 414 companies will showcase their products in 906 booths through the three phases of the fair. About 2,750 business representatives will attend the event.
“As the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement has effectively bolstered trade and investment between China and other participating countries, our goal is to expand into the Southeast Asian markets through the platform of the Canton Fair,” said Ni Jiaojiao, a sales representative at Positec Group, a Suzhou-headquartered power tools and garden equipment manufacturer.
Coppel, the largest department store chain in Mexico, has attended
the Canton Fair for the past 20 years and is eager to have in-person talks with established and new suppliers this year.
“We have been able to source quality suppliers of all categories at the trade fair and build strong partnership relationships, many of which have lasted over the years,” said Jennifer Patton, sourcing director for Coppel.
The fair serves as a great platform to procure products on a one-stop basis at lower prices, which has helped Coppel achieve significant growth, Patton said.
Fifty-three leading multinationals, including United States retailer Walmart, French retailer Auchan, German discounter Lidl and Abu Dhabi-based supermarket chain Lulu, are also attending the fair.
Over the past three years, the Taurus Group — a Spanish manufacturer of small appliances for kitchen and home use as well as personal care products — has been sourcing products online from the fair, due to COVID-19 restrictions.
However, Joan Basagana, president of the company, said it was better to attend the trade fair in person. “The physical fair is still the one that we prefer, because we can have direct
communication with Chinese companies, see and touch the products and make the right purchase with greater efficiency and get a better outcome,” Basagana said.
Gao, the researcher, noted that China, the world’s second-largest economy, boasts a vast domestic market of nearly 1.4 billion consumers and a middle-income group of 400 million people. Consumer demand that has been suppressed by COVID-19 is being unlocked again, providing greater sales opportunities for foreign products and services.
With traders from more than 220 countries and regions attending the Canton Fair, foreign businesses are having high expectations in regard to potential benefits from the China trade show.
In the East African country of Kenya, for instance, traders are hopeful the Canton Fair will provide them with opportunities to sign deals that will further promote trade relations between Kenya and China.
Eva Nganga, director of Varet Products, an integrated Kenyan sanitation management company, said she was excited about attending the China trade show.
“I want to see what the Chinese have been thinking during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what is new. I’m sure there are a lot of new technologies and innovations,” she said.
Colleen Rotich, director of resource mobilization at the Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry-Kenya Chapter, said seven of the chamber’s members will be attending the fair.
Most of the women are in the business of plastics and hospital supplies, she said, adding that her task will be to ensure they get exactly what they want.
Jemimah Wangui, an entrepreneur from Nairobi dealing in footwear from China, was excited to be going to Guangzhou.
“This will be my first visit to China for the Canton Fair, and I am looking forward to meeting some of my Chinese counterparts who have been supplying me with their products,” Wangui said.
“I have been dealing in footwear for the last five years. I usually import two containers a year. This trip will enable me to scale up my business,” Wangui said.
Pius Rotich, the general manager of Kenya Investment Authority, appealed to those traveling to China to consider signing partnership deals with manufacturers for setting up factories in Kenya.
“Kenya is a business hub for the East African region and so we want to make sure that we service Africa through Nairobi,” he said.
The Canton Fair is a customercentric, trusted and multichannel platform that also enables domestic buyers to procure premium products from overseas, said Zou Yu, a procurement representative of the Thai agricultural and retail business conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group, which runs a supermarket chain in China.
The company plans to place orders during the trade fair for Italian olive oil, Turkish figs and dried apricots and cereals from New Zealand, which are favored by Chinese customers in their supermarkets, he said.
China has a huge market potential to tap into, and the Canton Fair is a perfect opportunity for vendors to showcase both high-quality and budget-friendly commodities to Chinese customers, he added.
The Canton Fair has added new sections for smart manufacturing, new energy and intelligent connected vehicles, maternal and infant products, and the “silver-haired” economy. These additions attracted 9,000 first-time attendees, featuring a number of leading players in the manufacturing sector, according to its organizer.
Ningbo CLSA Self Lighting Co Ltd, a first-time participant in the fair and a Zhejiang province-based domestic trade company, has set up three booths to display its lighting products and launched two types of its travel lights last week.
“We are trying to rely on these new products to start export business at the Canton Fair,” said Sun Weihui, the company’s director of branding.
Ningbo, another industrial hub in Zhejiang province, saw the number of its exhibitors surpass 1,300. It set up more than 3,700 booths, a record. More than 12,000 attendees are expected to travel to Guangzhou to conduct business this time, said the city’s commerce bureau.