Are prospects for China’s exporters picking up on eve of Canton Fair?

With September trade data due for release on Monday, will twice-yearly trade show open in celebratory mood?

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Buyers and exhibitors at the Canton Fair in April. Photo: China News Service

Published: 9:00pm, 11 Oct 2024Updated: 4:13pm, 5 Nov 2024

Fernando Ching Lau has spent the past month travelling to trade shows around the world to source products for his new supermarket in Los Angeles.

The 10,000 sq ft store, called Crazy 99 Plus, is positioned as a neighbourhood bargain store, a sector Lau is optimistic about as the US economy continues to recover.

He has visited Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, Japan and China in search of suitable products, but shifting trade patterns mean Lau no longer considers China’s largest trade fair, the twice-yearly Canton Fair opening next week in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, to be something he simply has to attend.

“As a businessman, I have participated in the Canton Fair many times,” he said. “In the past 30 years, most daily necessities in the United States were imported from China, but the situation today is becoming very different.

“The supply chain is quietly changing, and even the low-end and mid-end products in cheap supermarkets are sourced globally.”

A record 246,000 international visitors flocked to the spring session of the 67-year-old Canton Fair – formally called the China Import and Export Fair – in April, but the value of deals signed was up just 10 per cent from the previous edition, at about US$24.7 billion – well below the US$29.4 billion recorded at the last pre-pandemic fair in late 2019.