CIIE 'Old Friends' Deliver a New Report Card — New Opportunities for an Open China Through Three 'Pictures'

At a Glance (China Coffee Network): At the 2026 CIIE, more than half of the exhibitors were returning 'old friends'. From booth pictures carrying cultural exchange, to product pictures close to local needs, to investment roadmaps sketching innovation trajectories, foreign businesses keep cultivating the Chinese market with new solutions and new achievements, bearing witness to the vast opportunities of advancing together with China.

Interactive post-office postcards at the Serbia pavilion at the CIIE — At the ninth CIIE’s Country Comprehensive Exhibition Hall, visitors select interactive post-office postcards at the Serbia pavilion. (Photo: Yunnan Net; by our reporter Chen Zihan)

Original title: CIIE’s ‘Old Friends’ Deliver a New Report Card — New Opportunities for an Open China Seen Through Three ‘Pictures’ (Global Hotspot)

A booth picture carries the ingenuity of cultural exchange and shows a two-way dialogue between China and the world; a product picture hides the thoughtfulness of meeting local needs and bears witness to the continuous iteration of new products; an investment roadmap outlines a path of progression and tells an innovation story moving from ‘selling in China’ and ‘making in China’ toward ‘researching in China’.

At the 2026 China International Import Expo (CIIE), more than half of the exhibitors were CIIE ‘old friends’. They came as promised with new solutions and new achievements, witnessing the vast opportunities of advancing together with China.

Booth pictures are becoming more and more worth seeing:

Witnessing friends from across the world move from debut to taking root

In front of the El Salvador booth, young girls spun and danced, holding flower-adorned palm leaves in their hands.

“These Salvadoran international students in China are performing the distinctive dance of the Flowers and Palms Festival — a ritual passed down through our generations,” said Alejandro Rivas, Commissioner for International Cooperation and Investment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador.

This year marks the ninth appearance of El Salvador’s national booth at the CIIE. On one side of the exhibition area, a screen loops tropical scenery, while the walls are decorated with intricate Maya glyphs. Premium coffee beans from the ‘Land of Volcanoes’ are ground and brewed on site, their rich aroma seeming to carry visitors to the distant shores of Central America.

“We strive every year to present new ideas through our booth design. This year the booth takes the form of a Maya pyramid, showcasing indigenous culture and an ancient civilisation and helping visitors understand the roots behind the quality coffee, liqueurs and handicrafts,” said Alejandro. In his view, the CIIE is an important window for the world to get to know El Salvador. Last year, Salvadoran rum entered the Chinese market for the first time, and that order originated from the CIIE. “For the Chinese market, visual presentation is crucial. Following market trends, we update our booth design and product packaging every year and join hands with local design talent to make our exhibits more appealing.”

Strolling through the Country Pavilions, one booth after another — each with its own clever design — serves both as a showcase of different cultures and as a platform for dialogue where China and other countries join forces to innovate and head toward a shared future.

In front of the Brazil booth, a steady stream of visitors flowed past, with queues forming almost the entire time. An XBOT robot was making açaí-flavoured ice cream, its robotic arm turning steadily. Victor, Chief Representative for the Asia-Pacific region of the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil), explained that this is açaí’s first appearance at the CIIE, and Brazil is joining hands with a Beijing robotics company to blend distinctive agricultural products with frontier technology. “This year we are no longer simply bringing local farm products; instead, we are exploring new deep-processing paths with Chinese partners to showcase the diverse potential of Brazilian produce. On opening day we signed a cooperation agreement with the JD.com platform, and in the future more Brazilian speciality goods will meet Chinese consumers through e-commerce platforms,” said Deng Liluo.

The Serbia booth was uniquely designed: a display wall pieced together from square grids looked like a giant white Rubik’s Cube, with basketballs, rugby balls, shuttlecocks, dolls and bicycle models neatly arranged. Hidden inside the booth was a mini post office where visitors could take part in an interaction to receive postcards and write down their expectations for the 2027 Belgrade World Expo. “These postcards will be left for visitors to the Belgrade World Expo to open. We are not only displaying goods, but want to turn this place into a treasure house of memory that holds fine products and cherishes friendship,” said Deng Liluo, designer of the Serbia booth.

Preserving cultural roots, integrating technology and conveying new meaning. The constantly renewed booths reflect the keen wishes of merchants from across the five continents to engage with the Chinese market and deepen two-way dialogue. “We hope to use the CIIE to build a bridge linking the future, to witness cooperation going ever deeper and friendship growing ever longer,” said Deng Liluo.

Product pictures are becoming ever richer:

Walking alongside the Chinese market leads further

Low-sensitivity fresh milk powder for sensitive stomachs, formulas adjusted to the health trend of less sugar and salt, and flavours customised for Chinese cuisine… Walking into the agricultural and food exhibition area, in order to win over the ‘Chinese stomach’, exhibiting brands each came up with clever ideas, integrating local needs into new-product development.

At the Goodfarmer Fruit Group booth, fresh fruits that debuted at previous CIIEs — Philippine Black Diamond pineapples, Costa Rican volcanic bananas and Peruvian organic blueberries — were displayed in the order they entered the Chinese market, with this year’s debut Peruvian organic bananas taking centre stage.

“To meet the Chinese market’s requirements for fresh fruit such as health and traceability, our fruit business has gradually focused on 14 categories,” said Ma Ling, product general manager of the Goodfarmer Fruit Group. “On 1 September this year, the first batch of Peruvian organic bananas arrived in China via the direct shipping route from Chancay Port to Shanghai, cutting the voyage from more than 40 days to 23 days.”

In 2018, Goodfarmer built its first warehouse in China, coinciding with the first CIIE. Nine years on, its distribution centres number 32. “Buyers and shipping suppliers came in wave after wave, and the negotiation area was fully seated. We prioritise bringing the world’s quality fresh fruit to Chinese consumers first,” said Ma Ling.

At the consumer-goods booths, another product scroll was equally full of novelty. In the LEGO exhibition area, a waterfall of flowers made of 26,400 LEGO botanical elements cascaded down, lighting up the creative block. On one side of the block, Chinese-style window lattices let through a warm glow; beneath red eaves, golden auspicious Pixiu stood on treasure basins and lucky lions were clothed in red and gold, vivid and lively. The LEGO Reunion Dragon Boat brimmed with hopes for family reunion, and stirring its oars, one could almost see it forge ahead through the waves.

Zhu Jing, assistant brand manager for China at the LEGO Group, told reporters that over nine years of keeping its CIIE appointment, traditional Chinese festival-themed sets have always been the booth’s ‘reserved surprise’; among the 40 new products the brand launched at the CIIE, two-thirds deeply integrate Chinese traditional culture.

“This year we designed the exhibition area as a creative block, and this is also the first time at a trade fair that we have built an exclusive building world for adults,” Zhu Jing explained. From the large public art installation “LEGO Flower Wave” to small and exquisite building earrings and necklaces, bricks have gradually become a medium for adults to express their passions and embellish daily life — meeting the brand’s need to match adults’ interest in exploration and self-expression.

From capturing the ‘Chinese stomach’ to capturing the ‘Chinese heart’, the product catalogue renewed year after year records not only one new-product debut after another, but also the firm commitment of international partners to keep cultivating the Chinese market and walk alongside Chinese consumers for the long term. “The needs of the Chinese market are an important source of inspiration for our new products. With the CIIE as a platform, we walk alongside the Chinese market and create more works that touch people’s hearts,” said Zhu Jing.

The roadmap is becoming ever clearer:

Taking root in China, moving toward the new

Walking into the booths of CIIE ‘old friends’, many exhibition areas feature dedicated ‘Nine Trips to the CIIE’ theme walls. The display boards slowly unfurl a narrative in which each new-product debut, each round of cooperative iteration and each project taking root on the ground are strung together, recording the footsteps of multinational companies growing alongside the Chinese market.

In the booth introduction of Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC), an international agricultural commodity trading and processing enterprise, the story of its bond with Shanghai is recorded. In 1994 the brand set up an office in Shanghai; 19 years later, LDC’s global R&D centre settled in Shanghai, gathering scientific strength from home and abroad to tackle feed protein, plant-based ingredients and other directions. The new-generation oil-based bio-emulsifier launched for the first time at this CIIE is precisely a result of this Shanghai R&D centre, and is produced on the ground relying on the Tianjin production line.

Huang Shushu, Chief Technology Officer of LDC’s Global R&D Centre and head of its North Asia speciality feed division, said: “These products fully demonstrate how we deeply integrate locally innovated R&D and production capabilities. With this we build high-quality, high-efficiency products that better respond to domestic customers’ needs for functional raw materials and precision nutrition solutions.”

Touring the CIIE, it is easy to see that ‘researching for China’ and ‘researching in China’ have moved from the choice of a few individual enterprises to gradually becoming the consensus of CIIE ‘old friends’.

The agricultural technology innovation company Syngenta placed a model of an R&D centre on its booth. In January this year, Syngenta began construction of its Crop Protection China Innovation Centre in Jinshan, forming synergy and complementarity with its R&D bases in Switzerland and the UK. Based on local agricultural conditions, it focuses on the prevention and control of diseases, pests and weeds in crops such as rice, moving R&D further upstream.

The Philips booth remained as popular as ever; visitors could try out first-launched new products such as a new smart electric toothbrush and a screen-refreshing shaver, and the design inspiration for several products came directly from feedback from Chinese consumers. With the Beijing innovation centre now in operation, China has become Philips’ second-largest full-product-line R&D centre in the world. The SBI Viewer ‘Treasure Box of Light’, independently developed by the China team, simplifies spectral reading workflows and is now going abroad, bringing Chinese innovation to medical institutions around the globe.

From ‘selling in China’ and ‘making in China’ to ‘researching in China’, the roadmap for investing in China is becoming ever clearer. China’s position in the global innovation network is moving closer to the starting point of innovation.

Liu Ling, member of the Global Executive Committee of Philips, said that gathering cutting-edge global innovation is the brand’s “basic skill” for exhibiting every year. “Today, China’s rich clinical scenarios, diverse health needs and maturing industrial ecosystem enable innovation to be rapidly validated and iterated here. We look forward to continuing to evolve together with our Chinese partners,” he said. (Reporter: Chen Zihan)

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