On June 12, the “Bridge of Trade – China Industry Tour” Middle East Special Session, co-hosted with the “Guangdong Goods Go Global” initiative, was held in Dongguan. Co-organized by the China Foreign Trade Centre and the Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province, and undertaken by the Dongguan Bureau of Commerce, this event marked the first customized special session following the brand upgrade of the Canton Fair. Adopting a full-chain model of “factory visits + enterprise roadshows + expert insights + one-on-one matchmaking,” the event facilitated precise connections between high-quality manufacturing enterprises in Dongguan and leading buyers from the Middle East, solidifying the foundation for cross-border supply chain cooperation and injecting strong momentum into the high-quality development of Guangdong’s foreign trade and Dongguan’s deeper penetration of the Middle Eastern market.
On-Site Factory Visits: Firsthand Experience of Dongguan Manufacturing Strength
The two-day event brought together 17 purchasing enterprises from the Middle East and 50 high-quality foreign trade enterprises from Dongguan, with approximately 150 participants in total. The event covered multiple mainstream product categories, including electronics and home appliances, apparel and accessories, home goods, building materials, and toys, achieving efficient matching between supply and demand.
The participating buyers represented a strong lineup, including renowned multinational corporations from the Middle East such as the UAE’s Lulu Group International, Kuwait’s Yagham Industrial Company, and Oman’s Bin Hameed Group. Many of these enterprises have been long-term partners of the Canton Fair, with years of experience in the Chinese market, clear procurement needs, and strong willingness to cooperate. The Dongguan-based participating companies are all Canton Fair exhibitors, including industry benchmarks such as national high-tech enterprises and specialized and sophisticated “little giant” enterprises, whose industrial strength and product quality have received broad international recognition.
Prior to the event, the organizers completed precise supply-demand matching. On the morning of June 12, Middle Eastern buyers were divided into two groups for immersive factory tours, visiting leading Dongguan enterprises including Bistone Digital, KINGSUN Optoelectronics, Yixian Garment, and Xiuyu Garment. They toured production workshops, R&D centers, and finished product showrooms at close range, gaining firsthand experience of Dongguan’s comprehensive industrial chain supporting capabilities, lean production processes, and innovative R&D capacity.
Li Caixu, Director of Bistone Digital, expressed his pleasant surprise during an interview, noting that the government and commerce departments had proactively built a professional matchmaking platform and dedicatedly served enterprise development. He introduced that his company primarily manufactures 3C digital products such as power banks, with product lines strategically diversified—conventional digital products targeting the domestic market and uniquely styled products that have long been exported to Dubai, India, and other countries and regions. With over twenty years of deepen engagement in the Middle Eastern market, the company’s products have established a stable reputation locally. He emphasized that trade cooperation requires mutual alignment, and this event has created a valuable opportunity for face-to-face communication between Chinese and foreign merchants, laying a solid foundation for enterprises to further cultivate the Middle Eastern market.
The visited enterprises left a deep impression on buyers with their technological advantages, stable production capacity, and cost-effective products. According to reports, the visited enterprises demonstrated impressive export performance in 2025, with Bistone Digital’s export volume reaching 312 million RMB, and leading enterprises such as Roman Smart and Sano Home Furnishings maintaining industry-leading export scales.
Mumtaz ur Rehman, a Pakistani buyer, focused his visit on two Dongguan garment enterprises. In an interview, he stated that he is very optimistic about Dongguan’s garment industry and was full of praise for the product quality after the site visits. He remarked that Dongguan garments feature excellent craftsmanship and reliable quality, expressing a strong willingness to cooperate.
Multi-Party Collaboration Builds the Platform: Dongguan-Middle East Bilateral Trade Growth Momentum Remains Strong
In the afternoon, the dedicated matchmaking session officially commenced. Cao Yongqiang, Deputy Director of the External Liaison Department of the China Foreign Trade Centre, stated that in 2026, the Canton Fair will fully upgrade the “Bridge of Trade – China Industry Tour” series of activities. The core objective is to break through time and space constraints, allowing international buyers direct access to industrial fronts and source factories. As the first customized special session, this Middle East event precisely responds to the Middle Eastern market’s core demand for supply chain stability. It not only helps Middle Eastern buyers consolidate supply chain security but also builds a direct channel for “Dongguan Smart Manufacturing” with core technologies to reach overseas consumer markets. Dongguan boasts a complete industrial chain, rapid responsiveness, and outstanding cost-effectiveness. Its distinctive industrial clusters—such as Songshan Lake’s electronic information industry, Dalang’s knitwear, and Humen’s garments—are highly compatible with the multi-tiered consumer demands of the Middle East, offering broad prospects for economic and trade cooperation between the two sides.
Sun Bin, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province, pointed out that Guangdong has ranked first in China’s GDP for 37 consecutive years, with the province’s total import and export volume reaching 9.5 trillion RMB in 2025, demonstrating a solid foreign trade foundation. As a foreign trade powerhouse in Guangdong, Dongguan’s total annual import and export volume exceeds 1.5 trillion RMB and is home to multiple national and provincial-level foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases. The hosting of this “Bridge of Trade” Middle East special session in Dongguan is an important initiative to implement the “Guangdong Goods Go Global” campaign and promote the diversification of Guangdong’s foreign trade markets. Leveraging the advantages of the Canton Fair platform, it will further shorten the distance between Guangdong enterprises and the Middle Eastern market and facilitate the transformation and upgrading of “Made in Guangdong” to “Intelligently Made in Guangdong.” He also extended an invitation to global buyers to continue paying attention to the 140th Canton Fair, which will be held in the golden autumn of October, to share development opportunities together.
Qu Hongqi, Vice Chairman of the Dongguan Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), stated in his address that Dongguan is located at the core hub of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. It is a world-renowned advanced manufacturing base and a key hub for Guangdong goods going global, with its industrial supporting capabilities firmly ranking among the top tier of prefecture-level cities nationwide. In 2025, Dongguan’s import and export volume with the 17 Middle Eastern countries reached 6.51 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 31.5%, demonstrating robust bilateral trade growth momentum. At present, Dongguan’s smart industries are flourishing—half of the world’s AI smart glasses and one-tenth of China’s AI servers are produced in Dongguan. This aligns highly with the strong demand for smart products in the Middle Eastern market, presenting enormous cooperation potential. Dongguan will take this event as an opportunity to continue deepening its regularized collaboration with the Canton Fair, optimize cross-border trade services, and make every effort to promote more “Dongguan Smart Manufacturing” to the Middle East.
Roadshows and Presentations Highlight Strengths; Direct Negotiations Explore Cooperation Opportunities
During the enterprise roadshow segment, two leading local enterprises—Guangdong Roman Smart Technology Co., Ltd. and Dongguan Sano Home Furnishings Co., Ltd.—took the stage in turn to present their core products, including personal care small appliances and healthy home goods, along with their advantages in going global. Cao Qiujing, an economics expert from the Dongguan Municipal Party School, delivered an on-site interpretation of Dongguan’s industrial development trends and provided an in-depth analysis of the opportunities and pathways for Dongguan enterprises to explore the Middle Eastern market, offering professional references for cooperation between Chinese and foreign enterprises.
Following the roadshows, the event entered the “one-on-one” supply and procurement matchmaking stage. Building on the organizers’ preliminary precision matching, Middle Eastern buyers and Dongguan enterprises engaged in in-depth negotiations covering product specifications, customization services, order delivery, logistics, and settlement details. The on-site exchange atmosphere was lively, with many supply and demand parties reaching preliminary cooperation intentions.
The event also collaborated with financial institutions including the Export-Import Bank of China, China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure), and CITIC Bank to tailor exclusive service solutions for Middle Eastern trade characteristics, providing comprehensive support for participating enterprises from multiple dimensions including risk control, settlement, and financing to address pain points and difficulties in cross-border trade. Sinosure launched exclusive convenience services for the Middle East special session, offering free credit information inquiries on Middle Eastern merchants for participating suppliers. Leveraging global credit intelligence tools, it helped enterprises gain early insights into their potential partners’ comprehensive profiles. On-site service desks were staffed throughout the event to promptly address business inquiries from both supply and demand sides and resolve information asymmetry in cross-border transactions. In light of the Middle East region’s trade settlement practices and the complexities of foreign exchange controls and compliance reviews, CITIC Bank provided one-stop cross-border financial services.
As an important vehicle for extending Canton Fair services, the “Bridge of Trade – China Industry Tour” continues to forge connections between exhibitions and industrial clusters. This Dongguan Middle East special session innovatively adopted a “factory visits + brand promotion + precision matchmaking” model, breaking beyond the limitations of traditional exhibitions to achieve deep integration of “exhibition + industry + market.” Going forward, Guangdong will continue to rely on the Canton Fair platform to regularly organize “Bridge of Trade – China Industry Tour” and “Guangdong Goods Go Global” series of activities, bringing more overseas buyers into various industrial clusters across Guangdong to facilitate precise supply-demand connections. Dongguan will also continue to leverage its manufacturing advantages, continuously enhance its comprehensive foreign trade service capabilities, deepen economic and trade cooperation with Middle Eastern and other “Belt and Road” markets, further expand its opening-up, and propel its foreign trade toward high-quality development.
