A foreign visitor immerses in a virtual reality experience and gestures toward a robot at the ongoing 8th China International Import Expo in Shanghai on November 4, 2025. Photo: Chen Xia/GT

Walking through the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai, one can see a dazzling array of specialty products from Belt and Road partner countries - including Rwanda avocado, Jamaica coffee beans, Sri Lanka sapphire and Tanzanian honey, which have captivated crowds at the ongoing 8th China International Import Expo, commonly known as CIIE.

The international expo serves as a platform where the dividends of China's opening-up policy converge with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), amplifying their combined impact. As CIIE celebrates its 8th edition this year, the signature fair has also been witnessing the overarching benefits of the BRI, showcasing how the China-proposed initiative has connected global supply chain network, opened up new markets and facilitated shared prosperity.

A total of 123 enterprises from the BRI partner countries participate in the 8th CIIE, up 23.1 percent from last year, according to data from China's Ministry of Commerce. Meanwhile, 163 enterprises from the least developed countries participated, representing a year-on-year increase of 23.5 percent.

In total, this year's CIIE features 4,108 overseas exhibitors from 155 countries, regions and international organizations, with the total exhibition area exceeding 430,000 square meters - with both the number of participants and the exhibition scale setting record highs.

Grand market, massive opportunities

Despite the global economic uncertainty, participants from the BRI partners noted that the Chinese demand for high-quality, high-end consumer products remain "resilient and robust." Meanwhile, the market is evolving with increasingly diverse structure, richer connotations, and greater potential, which is set to generate "unprecedented" shared development opportunities for the BRI partners. 

"So far, to see the mix of guests who are here, I can tell that there's going to be fruitful discussions, and it is a fantastic opportunity to showcase our run on a global stage," Michelle Umurungi, an official from the Rwanda Development Board, an investment promotion agency in Rwanda, told the Global Times.

According to Umurungi, this marks the agency's eighth consecutive participation in the CIIE, and there's a "very big presence" of African countries in this year's CIIE as well. 

"Our team is bringing more and more products in addition to coffee and tea. For example, our avocados are also coming to the Chinese market, so there are some of the few that's a teaser…" she said. "We want to expand our markets beyond." 

She highlighted the positive growth trend of trade between China and Rwanda under BRI framework and the zero-tariff policy China implemented on imports from African countries.

This year, the African products zone at CIIE has been enlarged to expand unilateral opening of China to the least developed countries, part of efforts to support African countries which have diplomatic ties with China to fully utilize the zero-tariff policy for 100 percent tariff lines. The number of African participants has jumped by 80 percent this year, data from MOFCOM showed. 

According to Umurungi, the active participation from African companies in CIIE is "a sign of trust and partnership" between the two economies, and she therefore urged stronger Global South cooperation in the context of "new political shifts."

Mohomed Faleel, manager of Sri Lanka's jewelry company AR Gems, also told the Global Times on Thursday that his company has set up five booths displaying dozens of jewelry this year, including necklaces, bracelets, rings, pendants adorned with rubies, emeralds, and tourmalines. This is compared with only one small booth four years ago when they first took part in the expo. 

The company now has a broader vision to make inroads into the Chinese market thanks to the solid progress made in the joint development of BRI, and the Chinese consumers' tradition of purchasing jewelry. 

"The CIIE provides a platform through which we could gain firsthand information on the demand of Chinese market," Mohomed said. He pointed out that Chinese consumers particularly favor sapphires, with those priced around 10,000 ($1,377.5) to 20,000 yuan being the most popular.

Making a debut

A growing number of products from the BRI partners are showing up at the expo for the first time amid the development of new trade routes facilitated by the China-proposed initiative. Business representatives said the new trend is a vivid display of "how BRI and CIIE complement and reinforce each other," enabling small and medium-sized enterprises to tap into the opportunities brought by China's sheer size of consumer market. 

For example, a variety of South American handicraft, including pottery and alpaca wool products, have made their debut at this year's expo, the Global Times noticed. Those products arrived in Shanghai via the "Chancay-Shanghai" direct shipping route, a flagship BRI cooperation project between China and Peru that has significantly cut the transportation time between the two countries by 10 to 12 days. 

China and Peru signed the memorandum of understanding on BRI cooperation in 2019, and the Chancay Port was inaugurated in November 2024. The port has now become an important logistics hub in Latin America, facilitating the exports of specialty agricultural products from Peru such as blueberries and avocados to the Chinese and broader Asian markets.

Xu Hao, the Chinese representative of a Jamaican coffee company, told the Global Times on Thursday that the BRI has established a channel through which Jamaican coffee farmers could have direct access to the Chinese market. It is the eighth consecutive year that Xu's company participated in CIIE.

Jamaica, a Caribbean country, joined the BRI in 2019. 

"Most of the coffee beans produced in Jamaica, known as Blue Mountain Coffee that targets high-end coffee market segment, were sold to Japan several years ago, a destination which once accounted for almost 90 percent of the total sales," Xu said. "But as trade flows between China and Jamaica grow under the BRI, the local farmers are increasingly putting high emphasis on the Chinese market."

He added that in addition to coffee beans, the company also has been expanding the product portfolio to sell drip coffee, capsule coffee and coffee concentrate to Chinese market.