The China Import and Export Fair, better known as the Canton Fair, helps global buyers and Chinese suppliers build business partnerships, offering participants opportunities to inspect Chinese products firsthand -- not just at exhibition booths, but on factory floors.
Running in three phases from Oct 15 to Nov 4 in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of south China's Guangdong, the 140th Canton Fair has attracted global buyers who came with long procurement lists for various Chinese products and a keen interest in closer collaboration with Chinese firms.
During the second phase of the fair, which concluded earlier this week, building materials and home decor exhibitors reported a surge of overseas buyers extending their trips beyond exhibition halls to visit production lines in manufacturing hubs across Guangdong, such as Foshan, a furniture and building materials hub less than an hour's drive from Guangzhou.
The shift reflects a deeper trend: for engineered building products, a sample alone no longer closes a deal. Buyers want to see the machinery, quality controls, and capacity behind the catalog.
Guangdong Prance Metalwork Building Material Co., Ltd., a 30-year-old, Foshan-based manufacturer of metal ceiling and aluminum facade systems, has seen a steady flow of visiting buyers during the fair.
"During this Canton Fair, we have successively closed 12 or 13 orders, and we still have three major orders on hand, each worth over 10 million yuan (about 1.5 million U.S. dollars). Our company's performance so far in 2026 has already caught up with the full-year results for 2025," said Huo Yiyan, a marketing director at Prance.
The stakes are higher for construction-sector buyers than for those sourcing consumer goods. A buyer purchasing aluminum cladding for a building in Albania or ceiling panels for a wedding hall in Pakistan is not simply choosing a finish -- they are betting on a supplier's ability to deliver to specification, on schedule, with installation guidance that works on-site.
"One of my projects [is] in Albania, [and] it's a very big building. I will buy from here the aluminum for facade. I will buy the windows ceiling," said an Italian buyer.
"I'm [in] construction of [a] wedding hall. Now we are buying some hall ceilings and the wall panels. I think I'll buy a lot of products from here," said a Pakistani buyer.
The factory visit also serves as a trust mechanism for repeat business. A buyer from Turkmenistan, who has worked with Prance on a previous project involving complex 3D shapes, said the company executed the difficult geometry "very perfectly." On this trip, he signed a new contract worth approximately 1.4 million U.S. dollars.
"We are working with them in one project and there is [one involving] 3D forum shapes, very difficult shapes, and they do it very perfectly. Today we've signed a new contract with this company. It's about 1,400,000 [dollars]," he said.
For Chinese manufacturers in the engineered building materials segment, the advantage is not simply price. It is the integration of design customization, digitalized production, and project support. Prance, for instance, operates a 36,000-square-meter digital factory in Foshan with four powder-coating lines and more than 100 precision machines, and the brand has reached more than 100 countries since 2006.
A Russian buyer said he has been sourcing from Prance for years.
"I've lost count of how many times we've come here -- hundreds, or maybe thousands -- but once again we are buying Chinese products. We have always chosen to work with Chinese companies, and this is a win-win for both of us," he said.
Held twice a year, the Canton Fair has long been regarded as a barometer of China's foreign trade and has grown over the past seven decades into the country's largest and longest-running international trade event. The 140th session has drawn buyers from more than 220 countries and regions.
Global buyers seal deals with Chinese suppliers on factory trips during Canton Fair
