At the Canton Fair held twice yearly in Guangzhou, exporters are adapting to smaller orders and a wider mix of buyers as shifting demand reshapes global trade – testing whether new markets can match the scale once provided by the West.
Electric kettles and rice cookers are displayed at the booth of Zhongshan An Bo Er Electrical Appliances at the Canton Fair in Guangzhou on Apr 15, 2026. (Photo: CNA/Melody Chan)
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22 Apr 2026 06:00AM
GUANGZHOU: At China’s largest trade fair, rows of electric kettles and rice cookers line the booth of Zhongshan An Bo Er Electrical Appliances – drawing in curious buyers who stop to browse and ask questions.
Spanning nearly a month and held in Guangzhou every spring and autumn, the Canton Fair is widely viewed as a window into China’s vast export sector.
But this year, escalating tensions in the Middle East are already influencing sentiment – underscoring how geopolitical shocks have been increasingly feeding into China’s trade outlook, with those shifts being felt on the ground.
“Five to 10 years ago, around 70 per cent of our export business came from Europe and the US – now it has dropped to about 50 per cent,” Guo Ziqi, a sales representative at Zhongshan An Bo Er Electrical Appliances, told CNA.
Interest from Southeast Asia and South America has been steadily rising, Guo said.
Across the fair’s sprawling exhibition halls, other exporters said they are seeing similar changes.
The key is how the era of relying on a few major Western buyers has been gradually giving way to a broader but more fragmented mix of customers from emerging markets.
Many of these new relationships, however, start with smaller trial orders rather than large contracts.
But the shift also raises a pressing question for Chinese exporters: can a smaller but growing pool of buyers eventually make up for the scale once provided by Western markets?
Economists said this shift reflects a broader push by Chinese exporters to diversify beyond traditional trading markets.
“This is a reflection of China’s efforts in exploring new markets outside of the US,” said Wang Dan, China director at Eurasia Group.
US imports from China fell 29.7 per cent year on year to US$308.4 billion in 2025, according to US Census Bureau data.
FROM MASS MARKETS TO NICHE DEMAND
First launched in 1957, the biannual China Import and Export Fair – better known as the Canton Fair – is held in Guangzhou from Apr 15 to May 5, bringing together more than 32,000 exhibitors across 1.55 million square metres of exhibition space.
The fair is organised in three phases, each focusing on sectors such as electronics and machinery, consumer goods and home products, as well as textiles and apparel.
Guo from Zhongshan An Bo Er Electrical Appliances said that the company has been expanding its product range and exploring new markets such as Vietnam – including developing products like rice cookers tailored to local demand.
Many Vietnamese households “cook rice in the morning and eat it throughout the day” so “they want keep-warm functions lasting more than eight hours,” Guo said.
At the same time, exporters said demand patterns in Western and emerging markets are diverging.
“In the past, they mainly purchased low-end products – but as their expectations for quality increase, their procurement is also moving up,” Guo said of some emerging markets – which also include other Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia.
Meanwhile, consumers in parts of Europe have become more price sensitive, Guo said.
“Five years ago people still believed in brands – but now some consumers think, if the economy is not good, why insist on buying an expensive brand? They may just buy a cheaper product instead.”
Some companies are also rethinking how they organise their businesses to reach a wider range of smaller markets.
Guangdong Xin Tongshi Group, an automotive parts manufacturer selling to more than 140 countries and regions, reorganised operations back in 2021 using an internal “amoeba management model”.
Under this structure, departments operate like independent business units responsible for developing their own markets and clients.
Executive Fan Wenhai said the model allows teams to respond more quickly to the needs of different regions and pursue opportunities in smaller markets.
“Even a mosquito’s leg is still meat,” he said.
BUYERS TESTING NEW SUPPLIERS
Many buyers said they approach new suppliers cautiously.
“If we can find some goods, we would like to make some samples for testing,” said Ben Zafer Kocaaku, founder of Turkish firm KOZA Marine Survey & Consultant. The company provides marine surveying, cargo inspection and project cargo consulting services.
“We should see our market reaction first … then we can decide.”
At the fair, Puneeth Bohra, business head at Indian kitchen appliance maker Stovekraft Limited, told CNA that his company has sourced components from Chinese suppliers for more than 20 years.
“Quality, price and supply capacity – China has all three,” he said.
His firm is now exploring additional products such as rice cookers and air fryers.
Some buyers are still in the early stages of exploring options.
Otodjo Folly Rene, from Folly Company in Tonga, said he attended the fair to better understand Chinese suppliers of electronics and machinery.
“China is a good country – and they offer better quality and cheap prices,” he said.
Economists said such smaller trial orders are becoming increasingly common.
Consumer goods orders are “more fragmented and smaller (in terms of portions) than before”, said Wang of Eurasia Group.
Global economic uncertainty has made importers more cautious about committing to large long-term contracts, said Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis.
“Challenges in growth and inflation have made global importers more wary of long-term commitments,” he said, adding that buyers often start with trials before scaling up orders.
With such strong competition among Chinese exporters, overseas customers may also have greater bargaining power during these trial orders, he added.
CAN EMERGING MARKETS FILL THE GAP?
Ng from Natixis said trade surpluses with emerging markets have grown faster in recent years, but their overall demand still remains smaller than that of traditional Western markets.
The share of markets across Southeast Asia, South America and the Middle East in China’s exports rose from 23.2 per cent in 2019 to 29.4 per cent in 2025, according to calculations by Natixis based on Chinese customs data.
He said this shift reflects a structural diversification of China’s trade partners.
But experts caution that these markets may struggle to fully replace the scale of demand once provided by the West.
“They are not large enough to fully offset markets such as the US and the EU,” Ng said.
Wang from Eurasia Group agreed, saying “demand was not enough” to replace the drop in trade from bigger Western markets.
Exporters said the transition will take time.
Orders from emerging markets have yet to make up the gap left by declining Western demand, said Guo of Zhongshan An Bo Er Electrical Appliances – adding that it could take around five years for the shortfall to narrow significantly.
Still, some companies have already built strong businesses in new markets.
Zhongshan Ruikang Electric Appliance, which produces voltage stabilisers and household appliances, said Africa now accounts for roughly 50 to 60 per cent of its overseas business.
The company first entered African markets through the Canton Fair more than two decades ago.
“Each market has its own demand. You need to understand consumers and develop products that suit them,” its chairman Luo Linan told CNA.
In African markets, this means studying local consumer preferences and offering products with strong “price performance”, Luo said.
Exporters said the new reality of global trade is increasingly defined by many smaller buyers across a wider range of markets, rather than a handful of large Western clients.
But whether those customers can eventually match the scale of past demand remains an open question.