The 110th China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair) will open on October 14th. Liu Jianjun, spokesman for Canton Fair, said the condition for foreign trade in the second half seems more difficult, foreign trade enterprises especially small and medium-sized enterprises would face great pressure.
Against this worsening trade environment, Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province, the foreign trade center in China, encounters a month by month drop in foreign trade growth rate, and this year’s Canton Fair would witness zero increase in number of participating enterprises and the scale. The 110th Canton Fair will have the same exhibition setup for the third time, the same exhibition scale and exhibition area layout for the 109th time, with an exhibition area of 1.16 million square meters and 58,600 booths, including 58,000 ones for exports, in 50 exhibition areas and 15 categories, and exhibition area for import maintained at 20,000 square meters in total.
Liu Jianjun, spokesman for Canton Fair and deputy director China Foreign Trade Center, said: “Till now, booth demand for this year’s Canton Fair is strong. Booths applied online totals almost 100,000, nearly twice as the number we can offer. To keep the number of participating enterprises and exhibition scale is to improve the fair quality and the exhibition level, making preparation for further optimization and development of the fair. By maintaining the exhibition size, we will pay more attention to optimize the structure of participating enterprises and the commodity, promoting the site service.”
It is reported that this year’s Canton Fair expands the range of purchasers, namely sending invitations to 1 million merchants. As of August 19th, the fair has completed 13 routes of participator invitation by holding 30 invitation activities globally and visiting 118 agencies. Liu Jianjun said:“Purchasers from emerging markets represented by BRIC countries have a strong will to attend the fair, and those from the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Britain and other developed economies also express the intention.”
On one hand, Canton Fair begins to control the number of exhibitors and the exhibition area; on the other, the environment for foreign trade is


worsening. According to results of last fair, proportion of short-term orders continued to rise, and enterprises were prudent to make deals, namely 90% are short-term deals. Purchasers are still uncertain about future market and prudent to place orders; export enterprises are worry about the policy adjustment and rising costs, and they hesitate to take longterm orders.
“PMI data of August shows a sharp drop in China’s new export orders, and US ISM manufacturing index also declines,” Wang Tao, chief economist at UBS Securities China, estimated,“China will have a slowing export growth over the next few months.” Canton Fair in this autumn will no doubt be the hope for many foreign trade enterprises in China, and it is the key whether those enterprises can stop the decline of the exporting growth in the second half of 2011 and improve the foreign trade performance. However, trade protectionism and trade frictions will have a big impact on the exports from China, and also the rising costs of production elements and fiercer international competition. During the communication with foreign trade enterprises all over the country, it was found that everyone has an expectation on Canton Fair, and they hope to place more orders.
Despite many adverse factors, and more earnest expectations from foreign trade enterprises, Liu Jianjun is still confident about this Fair. He said:“This Fair we did a lot in optimizing participating enterprises, improving the structure of exhibiting commodities and export markets, and also promoting the exhibition level of Canton Fair. We expect this Canton Fair will have a steady growth, no hike nor slump.”
Wang Zhiping said, despite there are a lot of uncertainties about world economy, the vast market in China attracts masses of overseas enterprises to China for business opportunities. Enterprises from both emerging countries and Europe express the willing to participate in Canton Fair.
Liu Jianjun predicted that, taking consideration of various factors, this fair is expected to maintain a stable development, but the growth may be lower than last year. “In terms of export trade volume, the 110th Canton Fair may have a steady growth, but not large,” he said.
Vice commerce minister Jiang Yaoping stressed that now the international economic environment becomes more complicated, the uncertainty and instability in world economic recovery. Debt crisis of developed countries have brought more pressure and challenges to emerging countries including China, then foreign trade industry in China is facing a weak external demand, rising costs and fiercer international competition. So, we should pay close attention to the changes in external market environment, secure the continuity and stability of foreign trade policies, improve the flexibility and effectiveness, enhance perspectiveness, build a good policy environment, and make preparation for being a strong trade power. Since the first Canton Fair in 1957, Canton Fair has been known as “vane”and “barometer” for China foreign trade, especially last ten years since China entered the World Trade Organization, when Canton Fair had a leaping development. The exhibition area increased from 160,000 square meters of the 90th in 2001 to 1,160,000 square meters of the 109th in the first half of 2011, and the variety of exhibits increased from 50,000 to more than 150,000. In the 100th Canton Fair in 2006, premier Wen Jiabao announced that Canton Fair was renamed as China Import and Export Fair, which turns from a one-way export platform into a two-way trading platform for import and export. Since then, the fair accumulatively attracted 3,955 high-quality overseas exhibitors, each fair had more than 200,000 visitors, 125 out of the top 250 world retailers have made purchases; trade value increased by 1.5 times, to 37 billion US dollars each; the number of exhibitors jumps from nearly 5,000 to 24,000. From 1st to 109th, the Fair has had a total trade value of nearly US$900 billion, attracted purchasers of nearly 6 million people times, and become one of the world’s largest and most influential exhibitions.