China’s Canton Fair sees drop in orders and visitors as US trade war bites

Export orders and the number of buyers at China’s largest trade fair both dropped during the spring session, Canton Fair organisers said on Sunday at the end of the three-week gathering.

Chinese exporters were unhappy at the fall in the number of deals, activity dented by the trade war with the United States. However, their foreign rivals cheered new orders, thanks in part to demand from countries taking part in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Export orders booked at the fair’s spring session totalled 199.52 billion yuan (US$29.6 billion), down 1.1 per cent from the same period last year and a 0.9 per cent decline from the previous fair in November. The number of buyers attending the fair fell 3.88 per cent from a year earlier to 195,454, organisers said.

Activity at the Canton Fair, in the heart of the Pearl River Delta export manufacturing hub, is a gauge of the health of the Chinese economy and foreign trade conditions.

Stronger orders from belt and road countries did not offset lower demand from developed countries. The fair attracted 88,009 buyers from countries and regions taking part in the massive China-led infrastructure scheme, a modest increase of 0.5 per cent from last April. Visitors from those countries ordered US$10.63 billion of Chinese exports, accounting for 35.8 per cent of the fair’s total orders.