The latest session of the Canton Fair in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, drew to a close on Thursday, with the organizers saying the show had generated export orders worth $28 billion, a year-on-year increase of 0.1 percent. 

Officially known as the China Import and Export Fair, it is an biannual trade fair, considered a barometer of China's foreign trade. 

"Buyers showed stronger willingness to buy than previous several sessions, less influenced by prices and paying more attention to the product quality and services," said Xu Bing, spokesman for the Canton Fair and deputy director of the China Foreign Trade Center. 

"Those enterprises with strong research and development capability, self-owned brands and well-developed marketing and sales networks overseas found favor." 

In all, more than 185,000 buyers from 210 countries and regions visited the 119th edition of the fair, an increase of 0.43 percent compared to the spring session last year. 

The number of buyers from the United States and Canada saw a significant growth, up 2.61 percent and 2.54 percent, respectively. The number of buyers from the European Union had a year-on-year increase of 0.77 percent. 

The fair also attracted more buyers from the emerging markets, especially along the Belt and Road Initiative route. 

Hong Kong, India and the US were the top three sources of overseas buyers. Four of the world's top 10 retailers, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Home Depot Inc, Tesco Plc and Carrefour SA, sent buyers to the fair. 

Electronics and home appliances, daily consumer goods, home decor products, gifts and machinery were the top five categories on the shopping list of overseas buyers. 

Despite an increase in both export turnover and number of overseas buyers, Xu said that the prospect for China's foreign trade is still full of uncertainty and instability. 

"It was such a slight increase in the export turnover and the number of attending overseas buyers. And most of the business orders, 82.4 percent, were short-term orders within six months," Xu said. 

"This shows that China's foreign trade is still challenged by the sluggish growth in the international market," he said. 

"We must keep on enhancing the confidence of Chinese foreign trade enterprises by reducing their burden and helping them to speed up upgrading and transformation." 

xujingxi@chinadaily.com.cn