U.S. Firms Fill 50,000 Square Meters at China’s Import Expo, the Most for an 8th Year

Photo: Kmchang28, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (file photo, 2026). Exit 5 of Shanghai Metro’s National Exhibition and Convention Center station, which serves the CIIE venue.

U.S. companies have taken more than 50,000 square meters of floor space at the ninth China International Import Expo, which opened in Shanghai on Thursday, Nov. 5. That is the largest area of any country for the eighth year in a row and about 1,500 square meters more than last year, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce and the Shanghai financial outlet Yicai Global. The expo, known as the CIIE, runs through Tuesday, Nov. 10, at the National Exhibition and Convention Center in the city’s Hongqiao area.

Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang gave the keynote speech at the opening ceremony, Xinhua reported. !Unverified claim, Xinhua (Chinese state media)

The expo by the numbers

Organizers’ figures, as reported by Xinhua, put this year’s event at 4,142 overseas exhibitors spread over more than 440,000 square meters. More than 300 of them are Fortune Global 500 companies or industry leaders, and over 480 products are set to make their global, Asian or Chinese debut. Xinhua called that the highest number of debuts in the expo’s history. These are organizer counts. TBR has not seen an independent tally.

The expo has six main exhibition areas: intelligent industry and information technology, consumer goods, food and farm products, cars and smart mobility, medical devices and health care, and trade in services. A separate innovation section features 633 technology projects from nearly 40 countries and regions, up almost 20% from the previous edition, Xinhua said. Germany, the United Kingdom and France were also among the top participants by size.

China first announced the expo in 2017 and has held it every year since 2018, presenting it as a way for foreign companies to sell into the Chinese market. According to Xinhua, the first eight editions drew participants from more than 180 countries, regions and international organizations, and “intended” deals totaled more than $580 billion. That figure counts deals announced as planned, not completed trade.

On the opening day, the Hongqiao International Economic Forum, held alongside the expo, released a World Openness Report 2026 and its first report on building capacity to export to China, Xinhua said.

Which U.S. companies are there

Agribusiness group Archer-Daniels-Midland, Rockwell Automation, 3M and FedEx are among the U.S. exhibitors, according to a China Daily report posted on the official CIIE site. !Unverified claim, China Daily (Chinese state media) Chicago-based ADM, at its seventh expo, plans to sign agreements worth 32 billion yuan, about $4.8 billion, for soybean and grain imports with customers and industry partners, the report said. Those are planned signings, and the report does not say they have been signed.

Yicai reported that Honeywell’s booth has grown to 500 square meters, from 50 square meters at the first expo, and that the company is showing about 170 technologies. Medical device maker Medtronic has launched more than 70 products at the expo over the years. According to Yicai, 33 of them were approved and introduced to hospitals in the same year through a fast-track “green channel.”

What U.S. business groups say

Sean Stein, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, told Yicai that the expo used to be seen by some as mainly a place for foreign companies to show commitment to the Chinese market, with product sales left to specialized trade fairs such as medical shows for device makers. He said the expo now offers precise business matchmaking and that its on-the-spot deals have become more prominent.

Eric Zheng, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, called the expo “the busiest and most important time of the year” for the chamber, Yicai reported. AmCham Shanghai and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have run a U.S. Food and Agriculture Pavilion at the expo since 2023. Zheng said it has brought in more than $1.2 billion in orders over three years, and that the chamber’s booth and number of partners grew this year.

Why it matters for U.S. exporters

The expo opens during a trade truce between the two countries. Xi Jinping and Donald Trump have pledged to extend that truce, first reached in October 2025, and to look at cutting tariffs on $30 billion of goods on each side, CNA reported. It also comes two weeks before the APEC leaders’ meeting in Shenzhen, where Beijing says it is in contact with Washington and Moscow about a possible three-way meeting, as TBR reported in its story on China’s comments on a Xi-Trump-Putin meeting. For U.S. farm exporters, the soybean and grain deals that ADM plans to sign are the clearest sign of business at this year’s fair. Whether they turn into actual shipments will show up later in trade data.

For the road closures and security rules in place around the venue, see TBR’s earlier report on Shanghai’s traffic controls for the import expo. More coverage is in TBR’s Asia-Pacific news section.

Sources

• Yicai Global: US firms lead in exhibition area at China Int’l Import Expo for eighth straight year
• Xinhua (state media): Ninth China International Import Expo opens in Shanghai
• China Daily via CIIE official site (state-owned): US companies at the 9th CIIE

Additional sources

• CGTN (state broadcaster): 9th China International Import Expo opens in Shanghai
• China International Import Expo: official English site
• Shanghai Municipal Government: CIIE 2026 latest news