Chinese products at Canton Fair improve year by year: loyal Australian buyer

Chinese products at the China Import and Export Fair, commonly known as the Canton Fair, are improving year by year, according to an Australian buyer who has participated in the fair for 15 years.

Themed "Serving high-quality development, promoting high-level opening-up," the ongoing 136th China Import and Export Fair in south China's Guangzhou features more than 30,000 exhibitors showcasing 1.15 million new products and has attracted 147,000 pre-registered overseas buyers.

With the theme "Quality Home Life," the second phase of the fair, which began on Wednesday, has focused on showcasing premium household items, covering home decorations, tableware, furniture, and gifts.

Buddy is an outdoor home wholesaler from Australia. On just the first day of the second phase, he visited nearly all the booths.

"I'm interested in the toolboxes and outdoor kitchen setups. The outdoor kitchen is a big market in Australia," said Buddy.

Buddy said that he has a list of products that are deeply loved by Australian consumers.

"I'd like to make an order with this (toolbox) product and also the stainless steel toolbox outside. So I'm interested in both of them. So I'm just going to [ask] quantity and how much and the price, and then we can make an order," he said.

As a loyal buyer at the fair, Buddy noted that he has seen the improvement of the showcased products over the years.

"The Chinese products over the years are becoming very, very good. I've been coming here for the last 10, 15 years and the products have been really getting better all the time," he said.

The fair is underway in three phases between Oct. 15 and Nov. 4 and is set to include 55 exhibition areas covering 1.55 million square meters. The first phase, running from Oct. 15 to 19, introduced new topics such as hydrogen energy and featured a dedicated area for energy storage products, attracting over 110 new energy companies.

Chinese products at Canton Fair improve year by year: loyal Australian buyer

The Zhuhai Port on the mega Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge in south China which marked its sixth anniversary on Wednesday saw surge in both foreign trade and vehicle trips through it in the first three quarters of this year, according to the latest customs data.

In the first nine months, the value of imports and exports through the Zhuhai Port, which lies at the end of the mega bridge on the side of the Chinese mainland, reached 164.97 billion yuan (nearly 23.2 billion U.S. dollars), with 3.968 million vehicle trips made, representing a year-on-year growth of 10.4 percent and 89.9 percent, respectively.

In the past six years since the mega bridge opened to traffic six years ago, total import and export value of goods moving through the Zhuhai port of the bridge has reached 942.7 billion yuan (more than 132.5 billion U.S. dollars), according to Zhuhai's Gongbei customs.

The port has recorded over 12.7 million inbound and outbound vehicle trips over the past six years.

The 55-kilometer-long bridge links China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), the Macao SAR and the city of Zhuhai in south China's Guangdong Province. It is the world's longest bridge-and-tunnel sea crossing.

Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge sees surge in foreign trade, vehicle crossings in January-September