Global businesses exploring China's massive market opportunities through Canton Fair

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By Chi Jingyi (Global Times) 14:10, April 18, 2025

The dialogue was heard on the metro, instead of the Canton Fair complex, between buyers from Canada and Nigeria attending the 137th Canton Fair, held in Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province.

It started after the buyers helped each other board the packed metro train at Xingangdong Station near the Canton Fair complex during peak exit hours on Thursday.

This serendipitous encounter on Guangzhou's metro, which evolved into an impromptu global trade exchange, epitomized the Canton Fair's global bonding power and China's catalytic role in global opportunity-sharing through the well-known opening-up policy.

When over 200,000 buyers from 216 countries and regions registered to attend, converging with 31,000 exhibitors, even a 10-minute metro ride becomes a movable trade booth.

Apart from worldwide buyers and Chinese exporters, 736 exporters from 50 countries and regions are also enjoying China's open-market commitment at the Canton Fair.

Yahsi Kurtuncu, general manager at dül Trophy, a Turkish manufacturer of home appliances, told the Global Times that the company has attended the Canton Fair for many years. The aim is to get in touch with overseas customers who visit China.

"I can't remember. Maybe nearly 100 batches of customers in the past three days," a sales manager at Kumtel Home Appliances Inc., a Turkish brand of consumer electronics, told the Global Times on Thursday at the company's booth.

The interview was interrupted by a group of buyers from Kuwait hoping to explore Kumtel's new products.

"This (attending the Canton Fair) is a good opportunity to find new customers. We are receiving many visitors interested in our factories and our capacity," Antonio Velasco Guerrero, sales manager at B&B Trends, a Spanish manufacturer and supplier of consumer electronics, told the Global Times on Thursday at Canton Fair.

"For us, the Canton Fair is one of the most important events where we can contact our customers," said Guerrero.

For Phan Anh Quan, sales manager at Omega Electrics JSC, the expectation is high as more potential buyers visited their booth at the Canton Fair.

"We hope that at this edition, we will have more customers from Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Last edition (October 2024) marked our debut participation with promising results," said Quan.

Huynh Ngoc Hoa, manager of Sanaky Vietnam Co, a Vietnamese home appliance enterprise, said that the Canton Fair is a good matchmaking platform for global sellers and buyers to reach deals.

This is Sanaky's first participation in the Canton Fair as an exporter. They were buyers during the past editions, Hoa told the Global Times.

The company plans to keep riding the Canton Fair wave, which is a golden ticket to scaling up exports while staying ahead of market trends, said Hoa.

Beyond exhibitors, the Canton Fair also chronicled the growth stories of its service partners, domestic and overseas.

An example is McDonald's, which began catering to the Canton Fair in October 1996.

Over nearly three decades, the service area at the event has expanded from 550 square meters to approximately 3,000 square meters, witnessing the development of Canton Fair and China's foreign trade, He Yiman, Operation Manager of McDonald's China Guangzhou Market, told the Global Times.

"The two McDonald's restaurants at Canton Fair complex are expected to serve over 100,000 customers during the 137th edition," He said.

In the past 68 years, the Canton Fair has consistently followed an open and inclusive approach, steadfastly committed to building an expansive international trade cooperation platform for global enterprises.

Amid a complex and challenging global trade landscape, the 137th edition opened, showcasing China's unwavering commitment to further opening up and sharing development opportunities with the international community.

China, as a responsible global stakeholder, remains steadfast in advancing an open world economy, acknowledging economic globalization as an irreversible force of the times.