Thailand's Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB) held "MEET Thai Plus 2026 Shenzhen" on September 9-10 at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center under the theme "Thailand: Meet for More." It is TCEB's largest overseas marketing mission to date, bringing together nearly 100 Thai public, private and academic organizations to meet roughly 1,000 Chinese business representatives, across 7,500 square meters of exhibition and meeting space.
Chinese participants span the MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions) sector, tourism, international trade and investment, e-commerce, software development, artificial intelligence, and various chambers of commerce and industry associations. TCEB said the event would showcase Thai business opportunities across trade, investment, MICE, tourism, technology, the digital economy, education, food, healthcare and the creative economy.
TCEB's target is at least 800 one-on-one business-matching appointments, worth an estimated 1 billion baht in business value. Holding the event in Shenzhen is seen as a deliberate strategic choice: as a major hub for China's tech and innovation industries, the city is home to numerous globally competitive companies in AI, cross-border e-commerce and smart manufacturing — precisely the kind of investment source Thailand has been working to expand ties with in recent years.
The event is part of TCEB's sustained push into the Chinese market this year. It follows an earlier media outreach event in Guangzhou promoting Thailand's MICE and business-travel resources to Chinese press, laying the groundwork for the Shenzhen event. Industry observers say Thailand has increasingly leaned on the MICE sector as a lever for attracting foreign investment and boosting related industries such as hospitality, dining and logistics, with China's vast pool of companies and strong outbound investment appetite making it a priority target market.
At a broader level, the Shenzhen investment push is also part of Thailand's response to mounting pressure from its trade imbalance with China. Statistics show Thailand-China bilateral trade reached $108.804 billion in the first seven months of 2026, up 29.89% year-on-year — Thai exports to China rose 9.17% to $26.837 billion, while imports from China surged 38.49%, widening Thailand's trade deficit with China to $55.13 billion, up 59.31%, with imports of electrical machinery and components alone up nearly 83%. Against that backdrop, TCEB has set this year's MICE-sector revenue target at 371.3 billion baht (about $11.7 billion), aiming to lift the sector's GDP contribution from 1.65% to 1.77% — making the Shenzhen push a concrete step toward both attracting Chinese capital and rebalancing the bilateral economic relationship.