Creative small commodities are drawing strong demand at the 139th China Import and Export Fair, or Canton Fair, in south China's Guangzhou, where innovative accessories have become standout attractions for overseas buyers. At a booth featuring bags, those with creative anti-theft designs have become one of the bestselling products favored by foreign buyers.
"Compared with similar products without this design, orders for the new product have increased by 30 to 40 percent," said Huang Yu, an exhibitor.
Shifting from price competition to innovation, and from volume-driven growth to quality improvement, a growing number of China's small-commodity enterprises are unlocking new growth opportunities through refined design.
"Chinese products are very good and very interesting. Its new products have so many innovations, and it's very interesting for us to come here in China to looking at new products and to get the new products in our country," said an Argentine purchaser.
In the exhibition area for sports, tourism and leisure products, outdoor goods covering various specialized segments offer more professional options for buyers from different regions.
"You just get an opportunity to get so much better value than visiting each factory obviously. When we see a product that's very, very special or very specialized, that's why we're more interested," said Trend Goulding, an Australian purchaser.
The Canton Fair runs from April 15 till May 5 in three phases, each highlighting categories from advanced manufacturing to home living and lifestyle products. Covering 1.55 million square meters, the fair features 75,700 booths and more than 32,000 enterprises, including about 3,900 first time exhibitors.
Established in 1957, the Canton Fair takes place twice a year in Guangzhou. It is the longest-running of several comprehensive international trade events in China, and has been hailed as the barometer of China's foreign trade.
Creative small commodities draw strong demand at 139th Canton Fair
This Dragon Boat Festival, tradition met innovation in southwest China's Sichuan Province as humanoid robots from Beijing not only paddled alongside human rowers in dragon boat races but also learned to make glutinous rice cakes and dumplings, infusing the traditional celebration with fresh excitement and new elements.
An "energy relay event" for the upcoming 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games made its second domestic stop in Bazhong, Sichuan Province, where the humanoid robots stepped out of the laboratory and into real-world festive scenes.
At Bazhong's Enyang Dragon Boat Sports Park, a human-robot collaborative boat carried two "Tiangong" robots from the Beijing Innovation Center of Humanoid Robotics, alongside six young local paddlers. These robotic athletes had undergone more than two weeks of adaptive training, first on Beijing's Shichahai Lake and then on the rivers of Bazhong, learning to sync their mechanical movements with the rhythms of human teamwork.
The robots looked a bit clumsy at first. But after several rounds of fine-tuning, they began to get the hang of it. Their paddle control became increasingly sophisticated, and their coordination with the human crew improved markedly.
To truly test their capabilities, the human racers stopped rowing altogether and let the robots take over entirely. The boat kept moving forward -- slowly but steadily.
Rowing a dragon boat isn't just about swinging arms back and forth. It demands a continuous, rapid sequence of lifting, dipping, pulling, and releasing the oar, which requires strength, timing, and precision. To replicate this, engineers optimized the robots' waist movements, making their motions far more human-like and fluid.
Using similar principles, the robots also joined in the traditional activity of pounding glutinous rice into ciba cakes. It's a true test of their dynamic balance and anti-disturbance capabilities.
The robots even tried their hand at making zongzi, the iconic glutinous rice dumplings of the festival. They rinsed rice and prepared ingredients with their dexterous hands, and by soaking and handling the materials, they achieved a significant breakthrough in water resistance. It's a small step that points toward a much larger future: household robots capable of working safely and effectively in kitchens, bathrooms, and other wet environments.
As the first international sports games dedicated exclusively to humanoid robots, the World Humanoid Robot Games will hold its second edition from August 22 to 26 in Beijing. Featuring more than 30 events, the competition will showcase the latest advancements in embodied intelligence and fine manipulation capabilities.
Robots join human paddlers as Dragon Boat Festival traditions go high-tech
