The 96th Chinese Export Commodities Fair closed on Saturday in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, with business deals worth US$27.2 billion being struck, a record high. 

The business deals from two stages of the fair -- the first one was reserved for manufactured goods, textiles and garments, food and medicine, and the second one reserved for light industrial commodities and horticulture -- went up 11 percent from the last one, said Xu Bing, the fair's spokesman.

According to Xu, 167,926 business people, an increase of 5.8 percent, from 203 countries and regions attended the fair.

Machinery and electronics remained the most traded commodities as US$10.82-billion worth of deals were signed, up 13.4 percent from the last fair.

The fair, heralded as the "weather vane of China's foreign trade," opened on Oct. 15, with a four-day interval between the two phases.

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2004)