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In March 2025, Guangzhou's Pazhou was abuzz with the energy of global business opportunities amid the spring breeze. As the first top-tier event for the home furnishing industry at the start of the year, the 55th China International Furniture Fair (Guangzhou) unfolded in two phases: following the conclusion of the Residential Furniture Exhibition from March 18 to 21, the Office, Commercial & Equipment Materials Exhibition, which opened from March 28 to 31, once again drew global attention. Among its highlights, the Hardware Accessories Zone, themed "Linking Infinite Possibilities," emerged as a core platform for furniture hardware enterprises to secure overseas orders and showcase innovative achievements, laying a crucial foundation for breaking through foreign trade challenges throughout the year.

Hardcore Exhibition Data: A Global Magnetic Field Across 170,000 Square Meters

With the core positioning of "Engine for New-Quality Productivity in Home Furnishings," this year's Equipment Materials Exhibition covered an area exceeding 170,000 square meters. It utilized 21 exhibition halls in Zones B and C of the Canton Fair Complex, bringing together 2,749 exhibitors to form a comprehensive industrial chain ecosystem. In the hardware accessories sector, nearly 100 industry leaders—including Xinghui, TUTE, Tuochen, and DTC—gathered in the Zone B exhibition area. The event also attracted nearly 300 overseas enterprises, a year-on-year increase of 5.34%, with a significant rise in the proportion of professional buyer teams from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

"On the first morning of the exhibition alone, we received 12 overseas buyer groups, 6 of which were from Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries," revealed the person in charge of Tuochen Technology's exhibition team. Leveraging the trade platform built by the exhibition, the company reached intentional orders worth over 8 million yuan with buyers from Malaysia and Saudi Arabia on-site, a 30% year-on-year growth. This momentum was not an exception—organizing committee data showed that overseas intentional transaction volume exceeded 500 million yuan in the first two days of the exhibition, with hardware accessories accounting for 42%.

Enterprises' Showcasing: Dual Breakthroughs Through Technology and Service

Facing challenges such as tariff fluctuations and market fragmentation, exhibitors used the exhibition as a "launch pad" for innovative achievements, responding to global demands with technological upgrades. DTC Hardware's new product launch was a highlight of the exhibition: on the morning of March 28, the company, in collaboration with its brand ambassador Su Bingtian, unveiled the C82 Hinge Series "STYLISH Soft Closing." By simulating real scenarios such as kitchen and living room cabinets, it demonstrated core advantages of "silent opening and closing with smooth operation," signing agreements with 18 distributors from Europe and South America on-site.

"This product was developed to meet the high demands for quietness and durability in European and American markets. It has passed Germany's TÜV certification and can still maintain price competitiveness despite rising tariff costs," said Wu Zhizheng, Chairman of DTC. With half of its 1,328 patents being invention patents, the company has solid support for overseas price negotiations.

Nomi Hardware broke new ground with service innovation: at its "Journey of Quality" themed booth, the industry's first "lifetime warranty" service sparked heated discussions among overseas merchants. Scanning a QR code allowed access to multilingual warranty terms and after-sales response mechanisms, securing regional agency orders from Australia and New Zealand on the first day. Tiansi Hardware's integrated adjustable damping hinges also attracted attention—equipped with a three-stage force buffering technology (a national invention patent), they solved the adaptation problem caused by differences in cabinet door weights across regions, covering intentional orders from 11 countries by the morning.

The Code to Foreign Trade Linkage: From Exhibition Orders to Global Layout

For furniture hardware enterprises, the value of this March exhibition extended far beyond "securing orders." Jiang Jialin, Marketing Director of TUTE Hardware, described it as a "global channel calibrator": "Through in-depth communication with overseas buyers, we found that demand for intelligent storage systems in the European market has surged. We immediately adjusted our export focus for the second half of the year, increasing production capacity for electric magnetic levitation pulleys by 50%." Leveraging the exhibition, the company reached technical cooperation agreements with 3 German home furnishing brands, promoting customized hardware solutions to enter the high-end European market.

The exhibition also served as a tangible platform for implementing policy dividends. As a demonstration platform for the integrated domestic and foreign trade pilot program, Guangdong's commerce department set up a "Belt and Road Trade Service Station" on-site, providing enterprises with "one-stop services" such as tariff policy consultation and cross-border logistics connection. Jusen Hardware, an exhibitor, quickly obtained the ASEAN market access list through the service station and finalized a supply agreement for 2 million sets of drawer slides with a Vietnamese furniture manufacturer on-site. "The qualification review process that originally took a month was completed in 3 days through the exhibition's green channel," the company noted.

Industry Insights: The Symbiotic Relationship Between Exhibition Economy and Foreign Trade Resilience

The enthusiasm of the March Pazhou Exhibition reflects the breakthrough logic of furniture hardware foreign trade: as tariff barriers and cost pressures become the new normal, enterprises are opening up new horizons through a combination of "exhibition presence + technological strength + service differentiation." As industry analysts pointed out, three representative trends emerged from this exhibition: overseas buyers increasingly value "technical certification + localized services"; orders from BRI markets exceeded those from Europe and the US for the first time; and the premium space for intelligent hardware is 25%-30% higher than that of traditional products.

"The order volume in March directly affects the production schedule for the third quarter. This exhibition is like 'spring plowing,' sowing the seeds for full-year growth," said Zheng Bikui, echoing the voice of the industry. From detachable hinges to lifetime warranty services, from deepening presence in European and American markets to exploring emerging markets, the Pazhou Exhibition has witnessed not only the completion of individual orders but also the global evolution of Chinese furniture hardware—from "accessory suppliers" to "system solution providers."