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Guangzhou's Free 960169 Hotline at the Canton Fair: What It Does for Buyers, the Four Things It Says It Won't Do, and Where a Hired Interpreter Starts

The 140th Canton Fair Business Trip Service Guide describes 960169 as a multilingual hotline run by the Guangzhou Foreign Affairs Office, giving public service information and interpretation in 9 languages (Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Russian, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese), with Indonesian and Malay added during the fair, and three-way interpreting for 12345, 110, 119 and 120. A 2023 tax bureau text says the hotline has fixed seats for English, Japanese and Korean, and an undated city government page lists four kinds of matters it does not cover, including 'matters of juristic or prosecutive nature', industry terminology and commercial secrets. In our reading, factory visits and negotiations fall under that list. This article lists which number to call for which problem (in an emergency, dial 110, 119 or 120 first), next to the Canton Fair's own in-hall interpreting and the profile counts in our directory.

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Guangzhou's Free 960169 Hotline at the Canton Fair: What It Does for Buyers, the Four Things It Says It Won't Do, and Where a Hired Interpreter Starts
Contents

Checked on 24 October 2026. We are an interpreting and translation company in Guangzhou (Guangzhou GuanRi Translation Service Co., Ltd.). We do not run the 960169 hotline, we are not a government office, we are not the organizer of the Canton Fair and we are not a law firm. For factory visits and negotiations this article ends up recommending escort interpreting, a service we sell ourselves. This is not legal advice. Everything said about the hotline comes from the official and press texts linked in the sources, with their dates; whether and how the hotline handles a given call is decided by its operators, not by us. The profile counts in section 6 come from our directory, not from an official source.

The second phase of the 140th Canton Fair runs from 23 to 27 October and the third from 31 October to 4 November. On 22 October the Canton Fair website published the Canton Fair Business Trip Service Guide for this session, compiled by the Guangzhou Municipal Commerce Bureau and the Guangzhou Municipal Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism Bureau, with the Foreign Affairs Office of the Guangzhou government among its supporting units. One page of it is about 960169, Guangzhou's multilingual public service hotline. This article sets out what that hotline is, what the official descriptions say it does and does not do, and where the line falls for a buyer. For quite a few of the problems a visiting buyer runs into, the free hotline is the right tool and you do not need us.

1. Which number for which problem

Your situation What the official texts say What to do Who decides
An emergency, or something you need to report to the police now 110, 119 and 120 are the emergency numbers. The 2026 guide says 960169 works with them "through three-way calling"; it is a language bridge, not a dispatcher (sections 2 and 7). An undated city page gives Japanese and Korean hours of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (section 3) Dial 110, 119 or 120 first. If you cannot make yourself understood, call 960169 and ask the operator to bring the emergency line into a three-way call. Japanese or Korean after 9 p.m.: ask for English The emergency services decide what is sent; the 960169 operator interprets
You are outside Guangdong, or 960169 will not connect from your phone eGuangzhou says the hotline was opened "in Guangdong"; we found no other official number for reaching it (section 7) Emergencies: dial 110, 119 or 120. Questions about your stay or visa: +86 12367. Inside Guangdong, ask your hotel's front desk to call 960169 for you The emergency services; the hotline
A question for a Guangzhou government office or for the 12345 government service hotline (for example, where to apply for a stay permit), in English, Japanese or Korean A 2023 tax bureau text says these three have fixed seats; an undated city page gives English 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and Japanese and Korean 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day (section 3) Call 960169. For questions about your stay or your visa, the National Immigration Administration's 24-hour line is +86 12367; a June 2025 page of the Chinese embassy in Canada lists it in Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Russian, Japanese and Korean The office you are dealing with answers your question; 960169 interprets
The same, in French, Russian, Arabic, Spanish or Portuguese The 2026 guide lists all five. A 2022 Foreign Affairs Office page lists them after English, Japanese and Korean in a sentence that ends "in a remote way", and a 2023 press report calls them emergency remote support rather than fixed seats; no text we found gives hours for them (section 3) Call 960169 and ask in your language; if nobody answers in it, ask for English The hotline
Your language is Indonesian or Malay The 2026 guide says that during the 140th Canton Fair "services in Indonesian and Malay are also available"; the hotline page gives no start or end date and no hours (section 2) Call 960169 and ask in Indonesian or Malay; if nobody answers in your language, ask for English The hotline
Your language is not on the hotline's list (for example German, Italian, Vietnamese, Thai or Turkish) None of the hotline descriptions we read lists these languages (section 6) Ask in English on 960169, or have someone with you who speaks Chinese. Inside the halls during the fair, the Canton Fair's own interpreters include German and Italian (eighth row) The hotline
A question about a departure tax refund The guide says eligible overseas visitors may claim a refund on tax-refundable items of RMB 200 or more bought in the same designated store on the same day, at a 9% rate, and lists a refund zone on the mid-platform of Areas A and B of the fair complex, open only during the fair. A 2023 tax bureau text says the 12366 tax line (option 2) can transfer English, Japanese and Korean calls to 960169 (guide pages 118 and 119; section 7) Ask the store before you pay; for a tax question by phone, call 12366, option 2 The tax authorities
A buyer who needs someone at a booth inside the fair complex during the fair The Canton Fair sells its own interpreting, inside the complex during the fair's opening hours: English RMB 600 a day at a booth or 800 a day as an escort; other languages RMB 800 or 1,000 (section 5) Book at one of the seven Buyer Service Centre locations listed on its page, for example Area A, Service Counter 8-1, 86-20-89130395, ISC@cantonfair.org.cn. Its page says interpreters are limited, first come, first served The Canton Fair's Buyer Service Centre
A factory visit, prices, specifications, samples, a contract: the things you came to the fair for The undated city page lists four kinds of matters 960169 does not cover, among them industry terminology, matters beyond Guangzhou's public and government services, and commercial secrets (section 3) In our reading, business talks fall under these, so do not plan them around the hotline (section 4). Bring your own interpreter or hire one; ours: WhatsApp +86 139 2416 6640, WeChat Saralee93 (section 8) You decide who interprets your business; the supplier decides whether to receive you
A case that is already open: a police statement, a court hearing, an arbitration The same page says 960169 does not provide services related to "matters of juristic or prosecutive nature" (section 3) Ask the authority handling the case how interpreting is arranged. For legal advice, contact a practising lawyer. Reporting something now: first row The authority handling the case
A hospital visit that is not an emergency A 2022 Foreign Affairs Office page lists 12320 among the hotlines 960169 works with (section 7) Ask at the hospital's registration desk; for a call to 12320 that stalls on language, call 960169. Our article on public hospitals is linked in section 8 The hospital

The exclusions in the ninth and tenth rows come from a city government page that carries no date and still lists only English, Japanese and Korean. The guide's hotline page lists no exclusions. Section 3 explains why we still treat them as the best description available.

2. What the 2026 guide says

The guide is a set of page images. The hotline has a page of its own in the web version, after page 126. Its Chinese text has 3 sentences and its English text has 4; the English splits the first Chinese sentence in two. The English, in full:

Guangzhou Multilingual Public Service Platform is a multilingual hotline established and operated by the Foreign Affairs Office of the People's Government of Guangzhou Municipality. The hotline, 960169, provides public service information and interpretation services in 9 languages: Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Russian, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese. During the 140th Canton Fair, services in Indonesian and Malay are also available. The platform also works in coordination with government and public service hotlines, including 12345, 110, 119 and 120, and through three-way calling, provides interpreting support for calls handled by these hotlines.

Three things follow from the text itself. The nine languages include Chinese, so there are eight foreign languages, plus Indonesian and Malay during the fair. The service is described as "public service information and interpretation". And the page gives no hours, no list of what is excluded and no other number for reaching the hotline itself.

3. What older official texts add: hours, fixed seats, and four things it does not cover

Hours. The Guangzhou government's English portal has a "Contact Us" page about 960169. The page carries no date, and it still names only English, Japanese and Korean as the hotline's languages, so it appears to date from before the nine-language list. The same text, with a Chinese version, was posted on Nanfang+ on 19 February 2020 by the Guangzhou government's own account there, citing the city's foreign affairs office as its source. On hours, the page says:

The English interpretation service runs 24/7 while the Japanese and Korean services are available 12 hours every day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Fixed seats. A text by the Guangzhou tax bureau, published on the website of the Guangzhou Government Services and Data Management Bureau on 27 September 2023, says that 960169 has fixed seats for English, Japanese and Korean. A Nanfang+ press report of 13 June 2023 says the same, and describes Portuguese, French, Russian, Arabic and Spanish as emergency remote support. The word "emergency" is the newspaper's; a Foreign Affairs Office page on eGuangzhou, updated 30 May 2022, already lists these five after English, Japanese and Korean in a sentence that ends "in a remote way". We found no text giving hours for those five languages, and none that says whether this arrangement has changed by October 2026.

Four things it does not cover. The same undated city page has a short section headed "Are there matters that '960169' does not cover?". It has four bullet points:

● "960169" does not provide services related to matters of juristic or prosecutive nature;

● Matters involving terminologies of certain industries.

● Matters beyond the scope of public and government services in Guangzhou Municipality;

● Confidential matters, including but not limited to state secrets, commercial secrets, and personal privacy.

The 2020 Chinese version has the same four points, and its third one also limits the scope to Guangzhou. We have not found a later official text that repeats the list, or one that drops it. The 2026 guide still describes the hotline as a public service line. That is why we treat the list as the best description available, and not as a rule we can confirm for this month.

4. Where the line falls for a buyer

Read as a buyer, the four points draw a fairly clear line. Most of what you came to Guangzhou to do sits on the far side of it.

  • A factory visit, a quality discussion or a price negotiation involves "terminologies of certain industries".
  • None of it is a public or government service; and in our reading a factory outside Guangzhou is also outside "Guangzhou Municipality".
  • Prices, specifications, sample feedback and contract terms are, in our reading, what the fourth point calls "commercial secrets".

These are our readings of the hotline's own description. How an operator handles a borderline call is for the operator to say, and we are not suggesting the hotline refuses calls that it takes.

A second point is our view, not something any official text says: a voice on a phone line is not the same as a person standing beside you at a production line, a measuring bench or a dinner table. That is what you hire an interpreter for.

On the near side of the line, use the hotline: a question for a government office or for 12345, an emergency call, or finding the right transport, telecom, utility or bank hotline. These are the matters its descriptions name, and its service is described as free. A question about a stay permit is a question for a government office, so it belongs here too.

5. Inside the fair halls: the Canton Fair's own interpreters

The Canton Fair sells its own interpreting, and it is a different service from 960169. The page text carries no date; the site's record for it gives 14 October 2026, under the 140th session. The scope is one sentence on the English page:

We provide interpretation service inside the Canton Fair Complex during opening hours of the Fair.

The Chinese page's version of that sentence says the service centre "only" (仅) provides it. The page lists ten languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Arabic, Korean and German. Indonesian and Malay are not among them. Prices are RMB 600 a day for an English booth interpreter and RMB 800 for an English exhibition escort; for other languages, RMB 800 and RMB 1,000. Payment is in RMB at the Buyer Service Centres in Areas A, B, C and D. For bookings during the fair, which the page dates 15 October to 4 November, it lists seven locations, each listed with a phone number and ISC@cantonfair.org.cn. Area A, Service Counter 8-1, for example, is 86-20-89130395. The English page ends "the number of the interpreters is limited; first come, first served", and adds a sentence the Chinese page does not have: "We recommend making your reservation as early as possible!"

The booking period of 15 October to 4 November also covers 28 to 30 October, the gap between the second and third phases, when no phase is open. The page does not say whether its counters are staffed on those days, so phone or email before you go. Outside the halls (factories, hotels, dinners, other cities, the days after 4 November) this service does not apply.

6. Language by language

The last column counts profiles in our interpreter directory that list the language. All 812 profiles list Guangzhou as their city. It is a count of directory entries, not of a team on call, and whether anyone is free on your dates depends on the booking.

Language 960169, 2026 guide Canton Fair interpreting page Profiles in our directory listing it
English Listed; fixed seat (2023 tax bureau text) Listed 631
Japanese Listed; fixed seat (2023 tax bureau text) Listed 248
Korean Listed; fixed seat (2023 tax bureau text) Listed 51
French Listed Listed 100
Russian Listed Listed 56
Arabic Listed Listed 7
Spanish Listed Listed 65
Portuguese Listed Listed 1
Indonesian During the 140th fair Not listed 4
Malay During the 140th fair Not listed 0
German Not listed Listed 32
Italian Not listed Listed 17
Vietnamese Not listed Not listed 8
Thai Not listed Not listed 6
Turkish Not listed Not listed 3

"Not listed" in the second column means that the 2026 guide's list does not name the language and none of the other hotline descriptions we read does either. It does not mean the operators cannot help; ask in English. For Malay, the hotline is the only one of the three that lists the language.

7. Calling it

  • The number is 960169. The Foreign Affairs Office's English site, eGuangzhou, says the hotline was opened "in Guangdong" in July 2019. We found no official alternative number for calling from outside Guangdong or from a phone that will not connect to it. If your phone cannot get through inside Guangdong, ask your hotel's front desk to call it for you; the official descriptions say the hotline serves institutions and enterprises as well as individuals.
  • Cost. The same site describes the platform as providing "free real-time translation services" for government and public affairs. We found nothing on whether your phone company charges for the call.
  • How it works. The undated city page says that if you have language problems with a public service, with 12345 or with 110, 120 or 119, you can call 960169 and "the operator will assist you to communicate with a third party by talking on speaker phone or establishing a three-party conference call". A 2022 eGuangzhou page names the hotlines it works with as 12345, 110, 119, 120, 96900, 12320 "and other major public service hotlines".
  • Tax questions. According to the 2023 tax bureau text, when you call 12366, choose option 2 and speak English, Japanese or Korean, the 12366 operator can transfer the call to 960169 in real time for a three-way call.

8. Where we come in

For the matters on the near side of the line in section 4, use the hotline. We do not sell anything for them.

What we sell is escort interpreting for the far side: factory visits, supplier meetings and negotiations, with interpreters whose profiles list Guangzhou. Our FAQ page lists consecutive and escort interpreting for business meetings and factory tours from RMB 200 an hour or RMB 800 a full day, depending on language pair and subject, with half-day rates available. The same page says a special VAT invoice adds 6% and an ordinary invoice 3%. It says common pairs (Chinese with English, Japanese or Korean) can usually be scheduled 1-2 weeks ahead, and rarer pairs or large conferences are best booked 4-8 weeks ahead. If you plan to visit factories after the fair, send us the dates and the language and ask about availability.

For a hospital visit, our article on seeing a doctor at a public hospital in Guangzhou covers registration, payment and consent. If you came in visa-free and want to stay on after the fair, read how the 30-day and 240-hour clocks are counted first.

Sources

  1. Guangzhou Municipal Commerce Bureau and Guangzhou Municipal Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism Bureau, Canton Fair Business Trip Service Guide (140th session; Chinese and English; page images, read and transcribed on 24 October 2026; the hotline page follows page 126 in the web version, the tax refund pages are 118 and 119): https://canton-fair-140th.fencyworld.com/index.html. Release notice on the Canton Fair website, 22 October 2026 (Chinese): https://www.cantonfair.org.cn/content-detail?id=fcb7d1cd1ef344bc8c5c34918d01c31d; English version, 23 October 2026: https://www.cantonfair.org.cn/content-detail?id=067e6a9b79844a289322e9eecd2019aa
  2. Guangzhou Municipal People's Government English portal, "Contact Us" page on the Guangzhou Multilingual Public Service Hotline 960169 (no date on the page; hours, scope and the four exclusions): https://www.gz.gov.cn/guangzhouinternational/pageelements/bottom/contactus/index.html
  3. The Guangzhou government's account on Nanfang+, 19 February 2020, the same text in Chinese and English (source given as the city's foreign affairs office): https://static.nfapp.southcn.com/content/202002/19/c3146034.html
  4. Guangzhou Foreign Affairs Office, eGuangzhou, "Guangzhou multilingual public service hotline 960169" (updated 30 May 2022; the five languages "in a remote way", the hotlines it works with): https://www.eguangzhou.gov.cn/gzexpatsinguangzhou/content/post_29556.html
  5. eGuangzhou, "Guangzhou multilingual public service platform releases guideline" (updated 1 August 2022; opened "in Guangdong" on 31 July 2019, "free real-time translation services"): http://www.eguangzhou.gov.cn/gzservice/content/post_29635.html
  6. Guangzhou Foreign Affairs Office, launch notice for the platform and the 960169 hotline (1 August 2019, Chinese): http://www.gzfao.gov.cn/zwgk/gkml/gzrmzf/gzdt/content/post_135522.html
  7. Guangzhou tax bureau, on the 12366 tax hotline's English, Japanese and Korean service through 960169, published by the Guangzhou Government Services and Data Management Bureau, 27 September 2023 (Chinese): http://zsj.gz.gov.cn/zwfw/zwfwdt/zwfwxx/content/post_9235590.html
  8. Nanfang+, 13 June 2023, press report on the hotline's fixed seats and emergency remote support (Chinese): https://static.nfapp.southcn.com/content/202306/13/c7786027.html
  9. Canton Fair, "Canton Fair Interpretation Service" (the page text carries no date; the site's record gives 14 October 2026; read on 24 October 2026): https://www.cantonfair.org.cn/en-US/pages/802506534755274752
  10. Our FAQ page (interpreting prices and booking lead times, read on 24 October 2026): https://www.translationchina.com/m/en/faq/
  11. Embassy of China in Canada, visa-free transit page (June 2025; the 12367 line and its languages): https://ca.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/lsyw/VisaFree/VisaFreeTransit/202506/t20250609_11643307.htm
  12. Canton Fair, 2026 Attendance Guide for Overseas Buyers of the Canton Fair (English edition, page 2: the phase dates; we read the English edition): https://www.cantonfair.org.cn/content-detail?id=598494791797825536EN
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