The 140th China Import and Export Fair

2026-10-23

GUANGZHOU — the 140th China Import and Export Fair, known as the Canton Fair. Overseas buyer attendance at a record high, according to the fair’s organizer.

As of Oct. 19, 189,000 overseas buyers from 214 countries and regions had attended the first phase, an increase of 13.3 percent from the same period of the previous session, the China Foreign Trade Center said. The organizer described the turnout as a record high and said it highlighted the resilience and vitality of China’s foreign trade.

The first phase, themed “Advanced Manufacturing,” covered 520,000 square meters of exhibition space, with more than 25,000 booths and over 12,000 participating enterprises. Exhibits spanned five sectors and 19 exhibition areas, including electronics and home appliances, industrial automation, lighting and electrical equipment, hardware and tools, as well as new energy vehicles and smart mobility.

This year’s Canton Fair marks the event’s 70th anniversary and is positioned around innovation, intelligence, greater specialization and higher quality. The Service Robot Zone remained one of the most heavily trafficked areas, with exhibitors showing robotic inspection systems, live-line maintenance robots and underwater propulsion robots designed to improve safety and operational efficiency. Live demonstrations also featured humanoid greeters, tactile-sensing robotic hands and AI inspection crawlers for elevated infrastructure.

The strong headline attendance figure, however, does not by itself capture the full commercial picture. The Canton Fair’s on-site figures have traditionally been treated by organizers as a barometer rather than the final measure of a session’s outcome, with post-fair factory visits, certification checks and customization talks continuing to drive orders in the weeks after the exhibition closes. The record buyer turnout in Guangzhou nonetheless offers a concrete signal that global sourcing interest in China’s advanced manufacturing sector remains firm, even as the composition of buyers and the size of individual orders continue to shift.

The closing of the exhibition does not mean the end of cooperation. The five-day event brought not only business cards and intended orders, but also the starting point for long-term relationships with global buyers. In the coming weeks, companies will follow up with visitors to their booths in a targeted way: sending samples, technical specifications and quotations to buyers with clear purchasing intentions and arranging video conferences or in-person negotiations; inviting buyers who need on-site verification to visit factories to learn about production lines, quality control and delivery capacity; and mobilizing R&D, production and foreign trade teams to respond to customization requests and advance small-batch trial orders and scenario-based solutions.

We look forward to using the Canton Fair as a starting point to maintain continuous communication with customers who visited our booth, advance follow-up negotiations on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, and turn a meeting at the fair into executable orders, replicable solutions and sustainable long-term cooperation. Through regular follow-ups, technical exchanges and after-sales mechanisms, the handshake at the Canton Fair will be extended into collaboration on the production line and win-win results in the market.