今日上海
进口博览会的制度升级从未停止，从展位流量到贸易存量 - 2026年11月03日
The Import Expo's institutional upgrades never stop from booth traffic to trade stock
The ninth China International Import Expo (CIIE) will open in Shanghai from November 5 to 10.
A total of 162 countries, regions and international organizations are expected to participate, with the exhibition area exceeding 440,000 square meters for the first time.
A record 4,142 companies from 148 countries and regions have registered for participation, and over 480 products are set to make their global, Asian, or Chinese debut – marking yet another record.
Meanwhile, the expo's institutional safeguards are improving. The General Administration of Customs issued a notice on September 1 outlining 18 customs facilitation measures, the ninth consecutive year of tailor-made customs rules for the CIIE.
The effectiveness of the institutional supply will ultimately depend on whether the booth traffic at the CIIE translates into trade stock.
From "temporary entry" to "long-term landing"
The "critical leap" from exhibit to product is held back by an identity gap. Two of this year's 18 measures directly target the problem of exhibits "staying." One extends the customs endorsement for the temporary entry of exhibits under ATA Carnets from six months to one year, and the other allows exhibits to be transferred to customs-supervised areas and bonded supervision sites after the expo.
Additionally, a unified guarantee from the organizer significantly eases the burden on overseas exhibitors. Exhibits get priority declaration, inspection, sampling and testing through dedicated channels, and even animals, plants and food from non-epidemic areas that have yet to receive quarantine access can be exhibited.
"Fast entry" is measured in concrete numbers. Shanghai has set up 123 dedicated customs service desks and channels for the expo, with inspection and release on arrival. Streamlined inspection procedures now apply to imported consumer goods making their debut in China, cutting customs clearance from a minimum of seven days to as little as same-day release and helping more than 30,000 new products speed up their Shanghai debut.
The CIIE Express Service serves as a prime example. The Zhangyuan specialized bonded warehouse in Shanghai's Jing'an district is the country's first bonded warehouse embedded in a heritage-listed building in a commercial core. With customs approval, it can transport goods stored in bonded supervision sites directly to the National Exhibition and Convention Center for display under bonded display-and-trading rules, without detours through other customs-supervised areas.
This year the full process takes three to five days, the transport distance has shrunk from more than 100 kilometers to within 20, and the point-to-point journey from warehouse to exhibition hall now takes as little as 35 minutes, down from a day.
Digital twins, AI image recognition and trajectory tracking during transport enable seamless customs clearance. The 1916 Company, an American firm, will bring the independent watch brand De Bethune to a Zhangyuan CIIE booth for the first time. Of the nine watches sent directly to the expo, one has already attracted a potential buyer during a preview.
"The days right around the CIIE are the golden window for customer traffic," Wang Kanghong, business development manager of an Italian jewelry company, said. "Whether in a pre-expo preview or a post-expo extension, the faster clearance brought by the CIIE Express Service makes the rapid circulation of high-value exhibits possible."
With pre-expo previews, express delivery to the venue, and post-expo return and extension all completed in bonded status, exhibits are no longer "passers-by" but "residents."
From a six-day booth to a 365-day counter
Once exhibits arrive, they require a platform. Shanghai is simultaneously upgrading three national import trade promotion and innovation demonstration zones in Waigaoqiao, Hongqiao and Huaihai Xintiandi.
Lu Shan, vice mayor of Shanghai, has set the direction: speed up quarantine approvals for imports and push exhibits from temporary entry toward normal imports.
The numbers already support the capacity. In the first half of 2026, Hongqiao's cross-border e-commerce orders and values both grew by 1.6 times year on year.
The Hongqiao Bonded Logistics Center (Type B) ranked first citywide in cross-border e-commerce bonded imports by both orders and value, with nearly 200 new cross-border e-commerce companies added, up by more than 1.7 times.
The "cross-border e-commerce plus industrial belts" pilot zone has logged well over 14 billion yuan in cumulative cross-border e-commerce trade.
At the Hongqiao Import Commodities Expo and Trade Center, known as Hongqiao Pinhui, more than 100 permanent booths sell CIIE goods year-round.
The "CIIE Goodies" sales fair this March brought together more than 1,000 products from over 30 countries and regions at once. Four brands went live from its livestreaming base, combining offline displays with online sales to turn expo traffic into trade stock.
The Import Expo's Institutional Upgrades Never Stop From Booth Traffic to Trade Stock
Caption: "Made in Russia" has maintained a strong presence at the CIIE, as Russian agricultural exports to China jump 50 percent in the first four months this year.
A stress test on the Eurasian corridor
From a regional perspective, Russia and other Eurasian countries are the most typical examples of the exhibit-to-product chain. According to the General Administration of Customs, China-Russia trade reached US$214.31 billion in the first three quarters of 2026, up 30.6 percent year on year, with Chinese imports from Russia at US$116.25 billion, up 28.6 percent.
The fastest growth was in the categories the CIIE targets: in the first four months of 2026, Russian agricultural exports to China jumped 50 percent year on year to a record, reaching nearly 4 million tons worth almost US$3.5 billion. A year earlier, in 2025, Russian farm exports to China stood at US$7.98 billion, accounting for 18.5 percent of Russia's total agricultural exports.
The CIIE is the platform that amplifies this growth. According to the CIIE Bureau, the national brand "Made in Russia" has maintained a strong presence at the expo over the years, serving as a vital gateway for Russian companies to showcase products, technologies, and services and to deepen China-Russia economic and trade exchanges.
"We will continue business dialogue with our Chinese partners and open a new chapter of mutually beneficial cooperation together," said Veronika Nikishina, General Director of Russian Export Center JSC.
Anton Doronin, economic development minister of Russia's Stavropol Krai, announced that the region will compile an export catalog of manufacturers for the CIIE, covering food, automobiles, consumer goods, medical equipment and health foods, smart industry and information technology.
Transport corridors are being upgraded in parallel. On October 22, the China-Europe Railway Express train X8059 departed from Xi'an International Port Station for Moscow, taking the network past 140,000 cumulative trips, with a cargo value exceeding US$560 billion, and serving 237 cities in 26 European countries.
Russia has installed fixed gantry vehicle inspection systems at three Russia-China crossings, Zabaikalsk, Kanikurgan and Pogranichny, in line with the Russian president's instruction to cut cargo vehicle inspections to 10 minutes. With regular railway services, smoother road crossings and optimized customs policy working together, the time from origin to booth for Eurasian exhibits keeps shrinking.
Turning booth traffic into trade stock: the mechanics and the way forward
Turning booth traffic into trade stock follows a simple logic: customs facilitation lowers the cost of the first try, platforms amplify the returns of repeat purchases, and only when the two stack up does traffic settle into stock.
Three institutions matter most. First, post-expo transfers, with "expo-to-bonded" and "expo-to-cross-border" channels, allow exhibits to enter domestic distribution in bonded status. Second, streamlined "debut-and-clear" inspection lets consumer goods test the Chinese market in days. Third, a unified organizer guarantees dedicated channels that cut compliance costs for small and medium exhibitors.
For Russian and other Eurasian suppliers, the next major source of trade growth will be mutual market access and freight coordination. Russian pork exports to China, for example, are growing fast, up 15.5 percent year on year in the first nine months of 2026, yet the value is just US$81 million, less than a quarter of Spain's.
This pattern of high growth from a low base shows that every expansion of quarantine access translates directly into trade growth.
The bonded display-and-trading channel of the CIIE Express Service should be replicated to more port platforms, with post-expo transfers more deeply integrated with cross-border e-commerce and livestream commerce.
For Eurasian farm products, China should expand the list of products with quarantine access, accelerate mutual recognition of inspection and quarantine and of Single Window data, and let the China-Europe Railway Express and customs innovation work together efficiently at border crossings.
At a deeper level, the CIIE's institutional innovation should move in step with the integration of domestic and foreign trade: the domestic sales channels, standards, certification and logistics networks for imported exhibits are part of the unified national market, and the deeper the CIIE's traffic settles, the stronger the foundation for that integration.
An expo's lasting influence ultimately depends on the continuity of its institutional supply.
At the eighth CIIE, Chinese companies signed import deals worth US$83.5 billion, a record. Whether the ninth breaks it depends not only on the six days of November meetings but also on the 365 days of everyday operations that follow.
The institutional supply never stops: every link unlocked settles a little more booth traffic into trade and makes growth a little more certain.
For exhibitors, this institutional chain that turns exhibits into products is both a door into the Chinese market and a predictable public good trade, one that keeps adding certainty and growth confidence to global trade.
Source: City News Service
