Most trade fairs are organised so that the host country can sell. The one that opened at Shanghai's National Exhibition and Convention Center on Thursday works the other way round. At the ninth China International Import Expo, 4,142 overseas exhibitors from 162 countries, regions and international organisations have arrived with goods they want Chinese buyers to purchase. The expo was launched in 2018 as the first national-level import expo anywhere, and it has not skipped a year since, through a pandemic and repeated tariff wars.

This year's timing gives the event more weight than usual. In the first three quarters of 2026, China's imports rose 22.3 percent to 16.74 trillion yuan, ahead of the 16.4 percent export growth over the same period. Much of the trade debate in Western capitals has centred on what China sells. The 2026 figures shift attention to what it buys, and CIIE is where that buying acquires names, stands and order books.

The scale has grown with each edition. The business exhibition crosses 440,000 square meters for the first time and more than 300 Fortune Global 500 companies and industry leaders have registered. A record 480 products will make their global, Asian or Chinese debut, adding to the 3,400 launched across the first eight editions. Last year's expo closed with $83.49 billion in intended deals, up 4.4 percent, and the cumulative total since 2018 has passed $580 billion.

Intended-deal figures measure ambition. The better gauge is the conversion rate from stand to shelf. Hongqiao 365, the year-round trading platform linked to the expo, listed more than 85,000 products from over 120 countries and regions by July, and about 70 percent of them had first been shown in Shanghai. A Lancôme skincare device introduced last year was on sale in more than 20 countries and regions within eight months. Grundfos, the Danish pump maker, committed about $100 million to a factory in Changshu after the fourth edition, and the plant opened in 2024. The showroom, it seems, has become a launch pad.

Loyalty points in the same direction. About half of this year's exhibitors are returning, and they occupy roughly 80 percent of the floor space, while 169 companies have attended every single edition. Takeda, the Japanese drugmaker, arrived as a mid-sized exhibitor and now ranks among the top 10 multinational pharmaceutical companies in China, with cumulative investment above 3 billion yuan. Firms do not return nine times out of courtesy. They return because the orders do.

Then there is the American presence. United States companies hold the largest exhibition area for the eighth straight year, more than 50,000 square meters and 1,500 square meters larger than last time. Tariff disputes between Washington and Beijing have dominated trade news for most of this decade, yet American exporters keep taking more space in Shanghai, for the obvious reason that a sales team reads demand before it reads communiqués. Canada, a guest country of honour at the Country Exhibition for the second time, has made the same calculation, and Canadian and New Zealand companies have their largest presence in the expo's history.

An import fair that served only multinationals would be an ordinary commercial event. The CIIE's development dimension lies in the space it reserves for economies that could never afford to buy their way into a large market. Free booth space for least developed countries has grown 17 percent this year, and an upgraded Asia-Africa products zone lets African exporters use the zero-tariff treatment that took effect in May for eligible goods from all 53 African countries with which China has diplomatic relations. Farm products from Tanzania and Benin have found steady channels through the expo, and Rwanda has moved from carrying samples in a suitcase to shipping produce to China by the container. Côte d'Ivoire's delegation has brought cocoa, coffee, cashews and kola nuts this year. For an Ivorian cooperative, a free stand in Shanghai is about the cheapest route there is into a market of 1.4 billion consumers.

The expo is part and parcel of a wider run of decisions. Hainan's island-wide special customs operations, launched last December, raised the share of tariff lines eligible for zero tariffs from 21 percent to 74 percent. Retail sales of consumer goods passed 50 trillion yuan last year and are projected to grow by another 10 trillion yuan over the next five years, while the 2026-2030 Five-Year Plan commits to expanding imports and continuing CIIE. This year, for the first time, the “Export to China,” “Shopping in China” and “Invest in China” campaigns are under one roof.

The accompanying Hongqiao International Economic Forum, meeting under the theme of stability and cooperation, will release the World Openness Report 2026 alongside a new Export-to-China Capacity Development Report, which assesses how ready foreign economies are to sell into the Chinese market. Nine editions ago, the question was whether foreign companies wanted access to China's consumers. The question now is how many more of them can be equipped to use it.

The answer will be counted when the halls close on November 10, against last year's $83.49 billion, and carried a week later to Shenzhen, where China hosts the APEC leaders. Given how fast China has been buying this year, we must expect the exhibitors to leave Shanghai with fuller order books than the ones they brought.