China opened the final session of the Canton Fair — the country’s biggest trade show — yesterday amid complaints that attendance has been dismal because of the financial crisis clobbering the nation’s biggest export markets in the US and Europe.
The biannual event, which started 51 years ago in this freewheeling city, has long been a key barometer of global demand for Chinese goods. Foreign buyers traditionally flock to the event to haggle over an astounding array of goods — everything from wrenches, bathroom sinks and copper tubing to solar panels, laptops, motorcycles and high-heeled shoes.
Final attendance figures will not be ready until the fair ends on Thursday. But exhibitors and buyers said they have noticed a sharp drop in attendance at the event in Guangzhou.
“It is amazing how empty is. It’s frightening,” said Christopher Devereux, a British businessman who has been attending the fair for more than a decade.
Devereux said the aisles are usually blocked with people. But at the fair’s second five-day session late last month, attendees were able to stroll up and down corridors virtually unimpeded, said Devereux, the Guangzhou-based managing director of Chinasavvy HK Ltd, which matches foreign buyers with Chinese factories.
Billed as the biggest Canton Fair ever, this season’s event was held in the massive new steel-and-glass exhibition center on the banks of the Pearl River. The sprawling building with a sloping roof takes up enough space for 200 football fields and featured more than 55,600 booths, a 30 percent increase from the last show, organizers said.
But when the doors opened on Oct. 15, many of the Chinese exhibitors were already gloomy.
“We’re looking at the financial crisis in America and Europe and we’re becoming worried about the future,” said Xiang Tao, as he stood in a booth surrounded by purple vacuum cleaners made by his company, Wuxi Jiejia Electric Appliances Co.
Xiang said most of the firm’s foreign customers are in Eastern Europe, although the company has hopes of exporting to the US eventually.
“But this definitely isn’t the time to try to break into the American market,” he said.
By the end of the second session that closed on Tuesday, many exhibitors said their nightmares had come true.
“I sat here all morning and didn’t have one customer stop by,” said a toy factory salesman who would only give his surname, Chen, because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
The salesman, whose company was based in the southern city of Shantou, sat in a booth displaying plastic toy handguns that shot tiny pellets.
“I haven’t had any orders so far at this fair. This is all I have,” he said, reaching into a tattered shoe box and grabbing four business cards left by prospective buyers.
“All I can do is go back to the factory and give them a follow-up call. It’s going to be hard to survive,” he said.
‘UPHOLDING PEACE’: Taiwan’s foreign minister thanked the US Congress for using a ‘creative and effective way’ to deter Chinese military aggression toward the nation The US House of Representatives on Monday passed the Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act, aimed at deterring Chinese aggression toward Taiwan by threatening to publish information about Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials’ “illicit” financial assets if Beijing were to attack. The act would also “restrict financial services for certain immediate family of such officials,” the text of the legislation says. The bill was introduced in January last year by US representatives French Hill and Brad Sherman. After remarks from several members, it passed unanimously. “If China chooses to attack the free people of Taiwan, [the bill] requires the Treasury secretary to publish the illicit
A senior US military official yesterday warned his Chinese counterpart against Beijing’s “dangerous” moves in the South China Sea during the first talks of their kind between the commanders. Washington and Beijing remain at odds on issues from trade to the status of Taiwan and China’s increasingly assertive approach in disputed maritime regions, but they have sought to re-establish regular military-to-military talks in a bid to prevent flashpoint disputes from spinning out of control. Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, and Wu Yanan (吳亞男), head of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command, talked via videoconference. Paparo “underscored the importance
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
CHINA POLICY: At the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China, the two sides issued strong support for Taiwan and condemned China’s actions in the South China Sea The US and EU issued a joint statement on Wednesday supporting Taiwan’s international participation, notably omitting the “one China” policy in a departure from previous similar statements, following high-level talks on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The statement also urged China to show restraint in the Taiwan Strait. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino cochaired the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China and the sixth US-EU Indo-Pacific Consultations from Monday to Tuesday. Since the Indo-Pacific consultations were launched in 2021, references to the “one China” policy have appeared in every statement apart from the
RSS