GUANGZHOU, May 5 -- The Canton Fair, China's largest trade fair, had fewer overseas buyers and trade deals in comparison to last year, organizers said on Monday.

The 115th session of the fair, which closed on Monday, attracted 188,119 overseas buyers, down 0.81 percent from the previous session last autumn, and down 7.23 percent from last year's spring session, fair spokesman Liu Jianjun said.

Export volume dropped 12.64 percent year on year to 191.18 billion yuan (31.05 billion U.S. dollars), and was down 2.01 percent from the last session, said Liu.

Chinese exporters are facing many challenges, including higher labor and material costs, a tough economic situation and increasing turbulence in some regions, the spokesman said.

The decrease in attendance and turnover indicated that overseas market demand remained weak, and that the recovery of the domestic market had a long way to go, Liu said.

First held in 1957, the biannual Canton Fair is the largest trade fair in China and is considered a barometer of the country's foreign trade.