BEIJING (REUTERS) - Export orders to the United States at China's latest Canton fair dropped 30.3 per cent from a year earlier by value, the fair's organiser China Foreign Trade Center said, as China's trade row with its biggest trading partner escalated.

Export orders to Australia and Canada fell 8.9 per cent and 7.3 per cent, respectively, at the autumn session of the Canton fair, which is held twice a year in Guangzhou in southern Guangdong province.

However, outbound orders to Japan, Asean countries, BRICS and South Korea showed a year-on-year rise, China Foreign Trade Center said in a statement on its website on Sunday.

Japan led the increase with a 74.4 per cent jump.

Overall export deals at China's biggest trade fair fell 1 per cent to 206.5 billion yuan (S$41.04 billion).

Exhibitors at the just-concluded fair said they were pessimistic about the export outlook next year given the rising cost of raw materials and labour in China as well as an expected widening in the impact from the Sino-US trade frictions, according to the statement.