China’s Global Trade Bazaar Is Going Online to Survive

Canton Fair to start June 15 will be completely online
China’s exporters grapple with new reality amid global slump

Employees rehearse livestreaming in the Ningbo MH showroom in Ningbo, June 10.Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

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By Bloomberg News

June 10, 2020 at 9:00 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

The world’s largest trade fair is going online, and the salespeople of Ningbo MH Industry Co. have been drafted in to livestreaming bootcamp.

Carefully selected for English skills and winning personality, a few dozen budding influencers from the east-coast textile firm are being drilled to undergo an experiment unprecedented in the history of the Canton Fair. The twice-annual trade meeting in the southern megacity of Guangzhou usually sees more than 200,000 foreign buyers cram into its exhibition halls, but this year the coronavirus has made that impossible.