According to the data the CIETAC South China has collected from former practice in the Canton Fair, trade disputes in the Fair have the following distinctions:

1. Cases involve parties from all over the world.
The CIETAC South China has resolved a considerable number of disputes for parties from all over the world. High-ranking dispute countries and regions include: the USA, Iran, Australia, Pakistan, Hong Kong SAR, France, India and Egypt. Case proportion classified by continents is as follows: Asia accounts for 44.5% (East Asia 20.3%), America 21.3% (North America 10.7%), Europe 19.8% and Africa 4.1%.

2. Disputes are diversified.
Reasons for complaints include: product quality (including product inconsistent with sample), delay or denial of delivery, non-performance, infringed products and so on.

3. Low use of contracts and weak risk control awareness.
The majority of the Fair participants trade by means of signing proforma invoices or orders rather than using contracts. Use of contracts or agreements only accounts for 20.3% of the total complaint number. Highly simplified way of trading will cause uncertainty and unclarity, which will probably leads to dispute and makes the dispute difficult to resolve.

It is quite rare that Fair participants agree on a method of dispute resolution before the occurrence of the dispute. Use of sales contracts only accounts for 20% of the total complaint number, while the proportion of using arbitration clause in these contracts are only 5.8%. This illustrates that risk control awareness of Fair participants is weak.