On April 15, it was announced that the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has been invited to serve as the Guest of Honor Province for the 2026 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS). As a frontline window for China's opening up and cooperation with ASEAN, Guangxi will leverage the platform of CIFTIS to comprehensively showcase its remarkable achievements and distinctive advantages in service trade development over the past three years, and to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation with global markets.
The 2026 CIFTIS is scheduled to take place from September 9 to 13 at Beijing's Shougang Park. In recent years, capitalizing on its unique geographical position of "connecting eleven countries across the bay and fostering positive interaction between the east, central, and west," Guangxi has deeply integrated into the Belt and Road Initiative and harnessed the benefits of RCEP implementation. It has made concerted efforts to open up channels for trade in services, resulting in steady growth in scale and continuous optimization of structure.
In 2025, the total import and export volume of services in the region reached $3.396 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.0%. This growth rate was 14.6 percentage points higher than the national average of 7.4%. Guangxi's trade in services has maintained a growth rate exceeding 20% for three consecutive years.
Innovation serves as the core driving force behind Guangxi's service trade development. Focusing on cultivating new business forms and models, Guangxi has created a number of service trade highlights with unique local characteristics. Through developments like the China-ASEAN Information Harbor and the Nanning International Communication Service Access Point, digital services such as big data, cloud computing, AI translation, and cross-border e-commerce are accelerating their presence in ASEAN markets. The scale of cross-border e-commerce imports and exports has doubled annually, forming a cross-border digital service industrial chain characterized by "R&D in North China/Beijing/Shanghai/Guangdong + integration in Guangxi + application in ASEAN." This has made Guangxi's digital services a prominent feature in the ASEAN market.
In 2025, Guangxi added 3 new national key cultural export enterprises and 8 new key projects, continuously enhancing the influence of its cultural brands and opening channels for transforming distinctive resources into international competitiveness. The Guangxi Normal University Press Group has ranked among the top 20 in the "Overseas Library Collection Influence of Chinese Books" list for 13 consecutive years, exporting cultural-related intellectual property licensing services to ASEAN, Europe, and America. Nanning Peak Culture Communication Co., Ltd. promoted the global expansion of "AI + culture" through its self-developed AIGC short drama creation application "Ju Xiaobai." The China-Thailand co-produced micro-drama "Sawasdeka・Thai Border奇缘," a key project for China-ASEAN cultural exchange, pioneered a new model of transnational integration combining "micro-drama + cultural tourism + economy and trade." Guangxi Jin Zhuang Jin Culture Investment Co., Ltd. exported ethnic brocade art services to Qatar, expanding into the Middle Eastern cultural market.
Guangxi is deeply exploring its ethnic culture, coastal wellness, and landscape tourism resources to promote the recovery and upgrading of the cross-border cultural and tourism industry, continuously improving the quality of international tourism services. Traditional Chinese medicine service export bases are enhancing quality and efficiency, with "Internet + TCM" services going abroad, integrating the characteristics of Zhuang and Yao medicine with modern cross-border services to create a unique TCM service export model.
Meanwhile, productive services such as supply chain management, bonded services, and cross-border finance are developing steadily, promoting the deep integration of trade in services with the real economy and building a diversified and distinctive service trade industrial system.
As the Guest of Honor Province for the 2026 CIFTIS, Guangxi will continue with the theme "Trade Beautifies Guangxi" and adopt the core positioning of "Guangxi Services・Intelligent Connection with ASEAN." It will meticulously create a distinctive theme pavilion to centrally display Guangxi's innovative achievements and results in recent years in areas such as digital services, cross-border e-commerce, cultural and creative tourism, TCM services, and knowledge-intensive trade in services. A series of thematic events will be held, including promotions for trade in services (digital trade), promotions for the TCM inbound consumption pilot, and forums on service outsourcing themes. These initiatives aim to build bridges for government-enterprise dialogue and business cooperation, facilitate the landing of a number of high-quality service trade projects, and help Guangxi's enterprises, products, and services accelerate their global reach.
Comments