Canton Fair Just Keeps on Getting Bigger

This autumn's Canton Fair will firmly establish itself as the world's largest trade fair, senior officials said yesterday.

It will consist of three five-day events from October 15 to November 6 separated by two four-day intervals, compared to the previous schedule of two events totaling 12 days, Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng told a press conference on the Canton Fair, or China Import and Export Fair, in Hong Kong.

The arrangement will "help it secure its position as the world's largest trade fair," said Wang Junwen, director of China Foreign Trade Center and vice president of the Canton Fair.

Organizers have been building a new facility to replace the Liuhua Complex, where the fair had been housed for the past 34 years.

The new facility, known as the Pazhou Complex, has been put in use phase by phase since 2004.

The 104th session, to be housed in the new facility this autumn, will boast a total exhibition space of more than a million square meters and more than 54,000 exhibition stands, Wang said.

The Pazhou center is in Guangzhou, capital of the southern province of Guangdong, where the Chinese manufacturing industries are concentrated.

It has 37 exhibition halls with a total exhibition space of 340,000 square meters.

Exhibitors and visitors to the center can take the subway, have access to larger space and enjoy enhanced services, Wang said.

In addition to moving to the new facility, the fair will also see a regrouping of its constituent sections.

It will be divided into 15 major categories including electronics and household electrical appliances, hardware and tools, machinery, vehicles and spare parts, and building materials, instead of the previous five.

The previous 34 specialized exhibition sections will be regrouped into 50, of which 27 will each have an exhibition space of 20,000 square meters or above.

The garment sections, for example, will have a total exhibition space of over 45,000 square meters, putting them among the world's top garment shows, Wang said.

Source: Xinhua

Editor: Jessie Hwang