The 140th Session Opens: From Selling to the World to Linking Supply Chains

The 140th Canton Fair opened in Guangzhou on October 14, 2026, with a congratulatory letter from President Xi Jinping and a keynote speech by Premier Li Qiang. Exhibitors and buyers framed the 70-year arc as China's evolution from selling to the world to linking the global supply chain.

An anniversary opening

The 140th session of the Canton Fair opened in Guangzhou on October 14, 2026, with a congratulatory letter from President Xi Jinping and a keynote speech by Premier Li Qiang at the opening ceremony. Xi wrote that over 70 years the fair has played a significant role in promoting trade exchanges between China and other countries, serving as a platform for high-level opening up and the building of an open world economy.

Li said China would continue to promote high-quality development, expand opening up, and share more market opportunities while firmly safeguarding the international economic and trade order.

Seventy years in one fair

The scale of change since 1957 is stark. The first session covered 9,600 square meters and drew 1,200 buyers; the current edition spans 1.55 million square meters and expects around 340,000, and has run without interruption for 140 sessions. In 2007, at its 101st edition, the event was renamed the China Import and Export Fair and introduced an import section for the first time, turning a one-way export platform into a two-way trading hub.

Cumulative overseas buyer attendance, online and offline, has now passed 10 million. During the pandemic year 2021 the fair went hybrid and opened to domestic buyers; the import section has since grown to more than 17,000 companies from over 100 countries and regions, including Fortune 500 names.

What buyers take away

Veteran attendees put it in personal terms. An Egyptian executive who has attended for a decade said each visit brings something new, calling the fair a one-stop destination for starting, upgrading or scaling any business. A Pakistan-born social media services director, also a ten-year veteran, said he grew up with the Canton Fair, finding suppliers across categories and partnering with them to bring customized products to Middle East customers.

Beyond matching buyers and sellers, the fair has become a showcase for how Chinese products and technologies upgrade global suppliers themselves. Phase 1 of this edition, themed advanced manufacturing, features more than 25,000 booths and 12,000 exhibitors, including 17 zones for emerging and future industries covering service robots, drones and display technology.

Figures in this report come from the organiser and the outlets cited below. We have not independently re-counted attendance, orders or exhibitor numbers.