Canton Fair Stats

Folks,

One of the first things that struck me in Guangzhou was the crowds... 25 years
ago there were
maybe 150 Americans there, although there were people from all over the world.
The fair has
been enlarged greatly, plus there is an unofficial fair going on all over the
city, with this unofficial
fair booths and storefronts set up everywhere.

Now keep in mind this fair, The Chinese Export Commodities Fair (CECF) is
China's premier export
fair, and only exports, and the exhibitors are generally the Chinese state
enterprises, so their stats
relate only to those trading with official China. This entity has no stats on
that vast market
outside the fair, that extends for miles each way.

I had some free time before my first appointment so I went into the press office
to get trade fair
stats, but the communist staffers were not about to hand out Chinese Govt Info
to an American,
and they blew me off with some website addresses.

Well, there was plenty of good information at the websites anyway...

Here you can see back in the 70's when I went there twice a year there were
about 100 countries
trading with the Communists and about 200 people per country visiting at the
time. That sounds
about right from my memory. It was much more village, communal like back then.

25 years later, there are twice as many countries trading with China and ten
times the visitors per
country, on average. What is missing here is the stats on USA alone, which I
suspect will
demonstrate the other side of the coin: Chinas sales to the world are rising
fast, USA trade is
dropping at the same time.

http://www.cantonfair.org.cn/en/info/statistics/visitors/index.htm


Next we see the CECF is doing over 10 times as much business as 25 years ago,
but what is
missing here is 25 years ago ALL of China's exports went thru this show, but now
none of those
vast markets outside the fair are counted in. Again, this demonstrates there
is a large economy
that is not under the thumb of the communists, and in that measure a free
market.

http://www.cantonfair.org.cn/en/info/statistics/turnover/index.htm


Then the fairs director reviews the last fair and observes some specifics not
show in the stats...

"The top five countries and regions in terms of participating buyers are Hong
Kong, USA, Taiwan,
Japan and Thailand, whose numbers of buyers are respectively 32,646, 11,528,
10,453, 6,414,
and 5,636."

and

"the second is that the number of European and American buyers increases
significantly, among
whom there are 31640 European buyers and 11526 American buyers, increasing by
33.8% and by
2.2% over the last session respectively; the third is that the number of new
buyers rises rapidly.
While the number of old buyers maintains a stable growth, the number of new
buyers attending
the fair reaches 78,635, taking up 46% of the total; the forth is that the
number of high-quality
buyers increases considerably"

So USA and Taiwan have about the same number of buyers, yet China is supposed to
be threat to
Taiwan...? Something is not right there... These new buyers are young, as far
as I can tell... and it
seems very many of them are Russian.

Asians are by far the major attendees at the fair, with Malays, and Thai and
Singaporeans
outsourcing to China as well, with a view to selling all over the world from
China.

The other thing is Americans as a group are not growing much at all (and if you
read on at the link
below it is clear USA buyers are the big companies.

http://www.cantonfair.org.cn/en/info/96Conclusion.htm

So a couple of things this underscores...

1. Trading patterns are changing, heavily, away from USA as the center.

2. There is quite a bit of trade that is off the Communist radar.

3. Personal experience: Retailer said it was a good idea and did not exist in
January, in March had
designs from designer, which I sent to China, in April I picked up a sample of a
handknotted rug in
China, with more samples to be fedexed in a couple of weeks. China is ready
willing and able to
produce. It is a remarakably easy place to do business.

A fellow listmember, unaware I was in China, emailed me and asked if she should
attend an asian
trade fair just for ideas. You know I am against that as a policy, but it might
scare you into action
to see the rest of the world busy getting busy as we chatter away about Mexicans
marching or
whatever the diversion du jour is to keep our minds off the mess our politicians
have made.

John

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