The 2026 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) concluded successfully in Beijing's Shougang Park on September 13. Running for five days from September 9, this year's fair was held under the theme "Global Services, Shared Prosperity" and ranks among the largest international services-trade exhibitions held in China since the COVID-19 pandemic. Shougang Park was originally the site of Shougang Group's steelworks, which halted steel production in 2011; the site was later redeveloped into the venue for freestyle skiing big air at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and has served as one of CIFTIS's main venues since 2021, today standing as a key hub of Beijing's exhibition economy. Organizers reported that the fair's core exhibition area drew nearly 420,000 visitor entries in total, up 36.6 percent from the previous edition, while overall foot traffic across Shougang Park reached about 810,000, up roughly 20 percent year-on-year. Several core indicators reached new highs for the event.

In terms of exhibition scale, this year's CIFTIS attracted more than 1,830 enterprises exhibiting on-site and over 5,300 exhibiting online, with 90 countries, regions and international organizations taking part under their own national (regional) or headquarters names. Of these, 473 Fortune Global 500 companies and industry-leading enterprises exhibited on-site, accounting for nearly 26 percent of all on-site exhibitors, alongside 320 companies from various industry rankings. This year's fair featured one main themed exhibition and nine specialized exhibitions, and over its course organizers held 200 forums, conferences and matchmaking/promotional events, covering key services-trade sectors including construction services, telecommunications, education, culture, tourism, sports, and inspection, testing and certification.

The fair produced more than 1,200 outcomes across seven categories including construction, information technology and finance. Ahead of the opening, Beijing Capital Group Exhibitions & Events (BCGEE) held a partner signing and licensing ceremony on September 1, signing cooperation agreements with 16 enterprises including Bank of China, China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co., Ltd. (CPIC), JD.com, Bank of Beijing, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Beijing Data Group, laying the groundwork for this year's event. During the fair, organizers for the first time set up a "China Services" exhibition zone showcasing more than 140 representative cases spanning 12 major areas of services trade, and launched a new "Going Global Services" zone bringing together professional institutions in finance, law, accounting and intellectual property to support enterprises expanding overseas. The fair unveiled more than 230 new products and achievements in total, over 100 of which were global or national premieres.

The fair floor also featured a cluster of concrete applications of digital and intelligent technologies in services trade. For example, Guang'anmen Hospital of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences presented a full "AI plus traditional Chinese medicine" diagnosis and treatment solution built around its "Guangyi-Qizhi" large language model 2.0, creating an AI doctor named "An An" used across patient services, clinical diagnosis, ward management, quality control, multidisciplinary consultations and teaching. The engineering consulting and construction services exhibition showcased smart-construction equipment such as robots that monitor structural deformation on building sites and an AI hazard-identification model. Meituan demonstrated its "Little Bee" indoor-outdoor autonomous delivery robots, already piloted for gate-to-gate delivery at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport, where passengers can receive orders in as little as 10 minutes and cumulative deliveries have topped 55,000. Zhongyong Technology, described as the first Chinese company to release a large language model dedicated to semiconductors, presented an AI manufacturing engine compatible with core fab equipment that offers automatic recovery from equipment anomalies, root-cause fault analysis, AI process simulation and computational lithography services.

International participation was a standout feature of this year's fair. For the first time, the accompanying Global Trade in Services Summit was co-hosted by two international organizations — the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) — together with the Beijing municipal government and China's Ministry of Commerce, drawing roughly 800 Chinese and foreign guests from nearly 40 countries and regions, a further expansion from the previous edition. Foreign attendees widely noted that China's continued opening of its services trade sector is creating new development opportunities for global businesses, with CIFTIS becoming an important platform for companies worldwide to learn about services-trade policy and expand their business in China.

CIFTIS traces its origins to the "China (Beijing) International Fair for Trade in Services," known by its Chinese short name "Jingjiaohui" (京交会), which China's State Council approved for launch in 2012 under the joint sponsorship of the Ministry of Commerce and the Beijing municipal government. The event was formally renamed the "China International Fair for Trade in Services" in 2019, and in 2020 its short name changed from "Jingjiaohui" to "Fumaohui" (服贸会, CIFTIS), the same year it was upgraded into a national-level, international and comprehensive exhibition, ranking alongside the Canton Fair, the China International Import Expo and the China International Consumer Products Expo as one of China's flagship platforms for opening up to the world. Looking back at the previous edition, the 2025 CIFTIS attracted nearly 2,000 enterprises exhibiting on-site and 5,600 exhibiting online, drew more than 250,000 visitor entries in total, and produced over 900 outcomes; more than 480 Fortune Global 500 companies and industry-leading enterprises took part, accounting for over a quarter of on-site exhibitors, while about 116,000 professional visitors attended by invitation, up 12 percent from 2024, and nearly 800 Chinese and foreign guests from more than 30 countries and regions attended in person. By comparison, this year's fair continued to grow on core indicators such as visitor numbers and outcomes achieved, reflecting the rising international profile of CIFTIS as a flagship event in China's services trade sector.

The continued expansion of CIFTIS is closely tied to the relatively fast growth of China's services trade in recent years. Official data show that in the first half of this year, China's total trade in services reached 3.8 trillion yuan, up 8.3 percent year-on-year, with services exports growing 17.6 percent and becoming an important engine of China's overall foreign trade growth. Analysts note that as global goods trade growth slows, services trade is emerging as a new growth point for China's opening up and the upgrading of its foreign trade structure, with CIFTIS serving as an important window for observing this trend.

As this year's fair drew to a close, representatives of numerous exhibiting companies and overseas institutions said CIFTIS not only gave enterprises a platform to showcase their latest products and solutions, but also created concrete opportunities for cross-border cooperation and market matchmaking. With the addition of new sections such as the "China Services" zone and the "Going Global Services" zone, this year's fair further highlighted China's growing openness in emerging services sectors such as digital trade, professional services, and inspection, testing and certification. Industry observers broadly expect CIFTIS to keep expanding in scale, outcomes and international participation in the years ahead, continuing to offer a Chinese contribution to global cooperation on trade in services.