Canton Fair: Discovering Tomorrow’s Business Opportunities

GUANGZHOU, China - Visiting the Canton Fair this year, you might feel lost in the crowd. With hundreds of thousands of buyers, tens of thousands of suppliers, and hundreds of nationalities trading a wide variety of products, it might seem as though your only points of connection are pre-arranged online. But there are two things that link the Chinese Machinery salesman, the Saudi Arabian textile buyer, and the American conglomerate: they have the desire to expand in a tough market, and they know that China is still the place to go to fulfill their ambitions.

Operating in a downturn requires the conservation of time and money, and what keeps people coming back to the Canton Fair year after year is the promise to save you both. Buyers don’t just come to China because it’s cheap, they come to China because only here can you find several suppliers all from the same province, sometimes from the same city, and twice a year, under the same roof. That saves you money in transport, in tariffs, and in time.

To help you get in touch with one another and find new opportunities we have brought back the Cup-of-joy parties from previous sessions, as well as set up new VIP rooms for attendants who have visited 15 times, organizations that have signed agreements with the China Foreign Trade Center, representatives of foreign governments and chambers of commerce, and representatives of the world’s top 250 retailers and 500 sourcing companies. You can get free Wi-Fi access anywhere in the convention hall, and the customer service center can help with technical support, security, catering, or anything else related to the convention.

The first half of 2009 has been hard on everyone, but there are already signs of new opportunities around the corner. With the NASDAQ at its highest point in 3 months, UK consumer confidence at its highest point in almost a year and China quickly spending its stimulus money, now is the time to prepare for the next upturn. So visit any one of over 55,000 booths and talk to your fellow buyers at one of our parties. You never know what sort of business partnership you might find yourself in during the boom of 2010.

Source: China Foreign Trade Centre (CFTC)

Mr. Xiaoying Wu, +86-20-8913-8628