CIFTIS 2026: when services and technology meet the city

0:00Discussion keeps the world turning. This is Round Table. You're tuned in to Round Table. I'm Steve Hatherley today with Feifei and Yushan. Coming up, the most interesting things at the China International Fair for Trade and Services this year might not be inside the venue at all. It's out in Beijing's western districts, new waterfronts, new routes, new ways to get around. And behind all of that is AI, digital platforms, health care tech, the whole stack. And it kinda makes you think, this isn't really a pitch to companies anymore, is it? It's a pitch to the rest of us. The question is, if we're buying it or not. Our podcast listeners, that's you. Can find us at Round Table China on Apple Podcasts and don't forget that we love to hear from you too, so send your voice notes to our way, send your emails our way. And table podcast at qq.com, once again, Round Table Podcasts at qq.com.

1:03When people hear the title, China International Fair for Trade in Services or SIFTIS, they may imagine a conventional business exhibition filled with corporate booths and government officials and industry professionals. And that of course would be fair. But the 2026 edition is trying to tell a much bigger story. This year's SIFTIS is not simply about companies selling services to other companies. It's increasingly becoming a showcase of how technologies such as AI and robotics and digital platforms and smart finance and intelligent health care are changing the way that businesses operate and also increasingly the way ordinary people experience a city. At the same time, the event is being integrated into the transformation of Beijing's western districts around the permanent venue of Shaogang Park, new waterfront spaces and restaurants and tourism routes and sightseeing trains and water transport have all been introduced around the Yongding River.

2:04Is SIFTIS becoming more than a trade fair? Is it becoming a demonstration perhaps of what a technology-enabled service economy can actually look like in everyday life? If it's here, Yushan is here. And first things first, well, Yushan, you visited the area, but you didn't visit SIFTIS itself, but you visited everything outside of SIFTIS. Yes, I visited that area and I liked that area. And I actually occasionally I will be there for just wandering about and seeing the scene. And actually, I visited SIFTIS last year for personal interest. So let's talk about the area where it is this year because that area is really growing in popularity. It's becoming a hotspot in western Beijing, but we'll get to that in a little while for people who don't know. Let's talk about SIFTIS itself. What's happening? What is it in what's happening this year?

3:04So this year is the 13th China International Fair for Trading Services and it is taking place from September 9th to 13th at that park show, Gampark, in Beijing, western side of the city. And this park was once a massive steel making complex. And today it's old furnaces, cooling towers and their pipes and towers and industrial structures have been transformed into a kind of steampunk, cyberpunk style urban park. Because they added a lot of lights on these infrastructures. And I hear steampunk, cyberpunk. I think of Chongqing. I think Chongqing has the reputation for that kind of city design. But we have it just down the road now from us here in Beijing, which is cool. You definitely should visit there. And I think it is really cool, especially when it's during the night. So this whole event, the five day event will have three professional visitor days followed by two public opening days, which means citizens can visit that venue during the weekend.

4:12The public opening days are September 12th and 13th when admission is free with advanced reservation. And they have prepared the whole bunch of like ticketing services because it is free. You can just reserve it online. And then they will have shuttle buses. And they offered you, I think, a huge account on if you are taking subway to that venue. And you get that subway, there will be shuttle bus to take you to from the subway station to that specific area that you're visiting. Oh, very nice. Making it really convenient. Because the show gone park is massive. I actually reported, I think, when the park first became as a venue of Siftis a couple of years ago. I walked at least 25,000 steps every day going to that park. I was so tired every day. And I'm only like covering one third of what they're offering. Well, the park is huge.

5:13But the scale of Siftis is quite considerable as well. This is from Xinhua. About 90 countries and international organizations are participating. It's impressive also. More than 1800 companies will exhibit offline. 1800 companies exhibiting offline. More than 90 companies and institutions, they are also expected to release new achievements. So there's a lot of tech and products and services that will make their global and or China debut. So this is a really, really exciting event. It's going to feature a bunch of different thematic exhibitions too. What are some of those about? Well, some are covering telecommunications, computer information services, of course, others like certain venues covering financial services. They're also culture and tourism services, which I think this one could be the most attractive to the general public during the weekends. Why do you say that? Because there will be a lot of showcasing of different performances and cultural related

6:18products where you can actually make purchases of. There's more talking about, for example, financial services, education services. You can't really place all the there. There are also venues for sports services or transportation services, engineering, consulting, and construction health care services, environmental and energy services. You can see, basically, I think, SIFT is covering most of the industries that we can think of. Yeah. So mainly, SIFT is hosting these kind of events for businesses to match with each other. And on public open days, citizens can also enter that venue and buy specific products that they can get. I remember last year I went there, yes, financial services, more like bank, bank will be there and make you to apply for credit card, that kind of thing, and they will give you some perks. And then if it is the cultural and tourism services, they will have these kind of tourism

7:25packages offering you. So of course, we're calling it a service expo, but actually there are specific products, the physical products that you can buy. And it is a kind of a carnival for, I think, for the whole city or the whole country to visit and maybe buy something in there. It's also a good opportunity for China too, right? Because this year, this time, they've created a dedicated China services exhibition area. So it's not just for a bank specifically or an education company. This is for the country. And they're doing this to showcase the country's innovation and achievements in different service sectors. So that's exciting to see too, since it's the very first time. Yeah. And also when it comes to Siftis, I think it's one of its features featuring all services, that's why it's called trading services. So there are, for example, this year, it's also introducing overseas expansion services,

8:27road show area, we are financial legal accounting, intellectual property, human resources. And other professional organizations can help Chinese companies to expand overseas. And also vice versa, international companies, if they're interested in the Chinese market. Yeah, I mean, how wonderful an opportunity, because not easy to enter into a market that you're unfamiliar with. So having people on the other side is certainly helpful. Okay. So why does, how many times have we used the word services already? I'm going to say it one more time. Why does trade and services matter so much? We hear goods and factories and cars and electronics and containers. So what is so important about it? Well, I think unlike physical goals, like a car or a container, what a lot of, let's

9:28say, the manufacturers of these cars and containers and electronic products. I think we are noticing a change of wording in their marketing among these manufacturing for, among these manufacturers, for instance, they're using solutions more and more often rather than products. In their marketing slogans, you'll see we are trying to sell solutions to our clients. But in the past, it's more about we're selling our products. And I'm just wondering why, why the switch, what does solution mean with the difference between solutions and products? And then I realize if you want to have more value added revenues out of your production, selling the car or the container or whatever you produce is not enough. If you are seeking better and more growth, meaning all the services surrounding that car or that container is also something you can help. For example, we talked about, for example, we talked about exporting or importing a car,

10:32for instance, what you can offer is also, for example, after services of your car products. And also the before sales and also the maintenance and also the digital, the smart technology, the smart system in the car system that a lot of drivers enjoy in these days. Is a whole part of the services a lot of companies can offer and are getting more values on the market. These are the things that we don't think about when we go to buy a car, but they are absolutely a part of the car industry. The behind the scenes aspects that we don't normally see. Yeah, to achieve that tangible product is actually surrounded by probably millions of providers of services. What about the tech? If this is not really, if it's focused more on one aspect and it's not a technology fair, right, it's not a tech expo. So how does technology become a part of this? Well, because technology is becoming basically the infrastructure.

11:34Yeah. Behind a lot of the modern services, for example, the car smart system, I just mentioned, it has something to do with the digital services, the AI technology smart manufacturing, analytics, so on and so forth that are related. So this year's sifties, they somewhat plays a particular focus on these pretty advanced technologies. For example, intelligent healthcare smart education, financial technology and green technology. And they are covering a lot of areas when it comes to the venues, the telecommunication and computer and information services, for instance, covers around 7,600 square meters. So a lot of major Chinese companies like the China mobile, China Unicom, Alibaba alongside with some other telecommunication companies are part of it. So they are organized around concepts, including smart production, smart living, smart culture,

12:34so smart is the key word here. So these technological aspects, then they're not being pitched, excuse me, to people as part of some futuristic concepts. These are being presented as you said before, solutions to practical problems. It is becoming, yeah, we've mentioned it a lot, the infrastructure of our daily lives and of course, the infrastructure of this whole event. And I've seen some of these, because they have like vendors and also little windows and shops, robots already selling stuff and making coffee in that venue for people. So it is kind of now the daily routine for a lot of these venues and events to happen, because yeah, it's just kind of a basic infrastructure now. I run into a machine, it's not part of the siftice, but I think it's on show somewhere

13:36in the healthcare venue, is that they currently have a new machine that is scanning your whole body and then tell you in the traditional Chinese medicine terms was wrong with your body. The whole system was the imbalance of your Yin and Yang of your, you know, they don't have to go through the traditional Chinese medicine practitioner path in a nephelial pulse or watch it the color of your tongue. Oh, dear, it's the color of your tongue. Yeah, one will really matters matters a lot. No, I'm not questioning that. I'm questioning sticking out of out your tongue in the middle of an exhibition hall to a machine essential for a health check up. So don't be embarrassed. But they're currently having this technology that sort of basically having a infrared somewhere camera installed and then scanning your whole body and then giving a report telling you what is wrong with a body? What's where you are maybe having more human or more fire?

14:37I hope it's not radioactive. I get you. It's not futuristic, but yeah, it's hard to believe, but it's true. AI is represented in other ways as well. There is a 24-7 online assistance, AI assistant, for assistance, it's called Xiaofu. And the function here for this AI assistant is not simply answering questions. So what this platform does is it uses, this is really fun. It uses data and algorithms to provide intelligent trade matching. So instead of companies searching through all these lists of potential trade partners, the system analyzes supply and demand information and then it proactively recommends potential trade matches for your company. It's kind of like a matchmaking services dating app. Yeah, matchmaking. Kind of. And also the platform is adding an AI, a tenor assistant.

15:38It can't consider this. This is so important. I have to say last year when I was visiting that area, I have to take, because there is a shuttle bus from the subway station to the venue, right? And also in the venue, there are several shuttle buses to take you from point A to point P. Because it's massive. It is massive and several exhibition halls. But the things that last year I can just really got lost on which one I should go and which exhibition hall has which kind of services or products they can see. So if we have this AI, itinerary assistant last year, it could be so much easier for you to actually spot that kind of thing that you want to go and save you a lot of time and energy to just walk and maybe get on these. Yeah, it's not only making visitors visits more convenient. Imagine for like a small company, for instance, they can come to SIFTAS looking for overseas distributors, for instance.

16:39So now instead of spending hours walking around that massive Shogun Park, trying to identify relevant companies, they now have a zone digital file that can potentially be matched with companies looking exactly what they are offering. It's much easier with more efficiency. It makes more sense. I mean, again, I have to emphasize here again, Shogun Park is massive. Let's talk about the park. This is becoming a real hotspot for people to visit, people to hang out. There's at least one high end hotel there. There are numerous restaurants, eateries and cafes. A lake is there, I believe. So yeah, tell us about this place. This is becoming a really niche place for you to just wandering around and enjoy that chill time there. You go there kind of a lot. Yeah. I really like that peaceful vibe there.

17:41You should sometimes, when I work, I asked him where he's going. He told me, go into the Shogun Park. I was, for what? I'm going to there and watch the sunset. Wow. It's very romantic. It's a perfect place for sunset. Yeah. And I recommend you all to go. And that park, that area is also upgrading not only for sunset, because around that Shogun Park and the Yomding River, Beijing is developing that two parks and one river area. That means Shogun Park, Beijing Garden Expo Park, that's on the another side of that river, and also the Yomding River. So these two parks are connected by this river. And now there is a like shuttle little cruise for visitors to visit for one time. On a boat. Exactly. So that area is being developed as a combined space for culture, tourism, commerce, sports, and also exhibitions. It's an interesting place because this is just my impression of Beijing after living here

18:43for a couple of years. You have the forbidden city, smack dab in the middle of the city. And then to the right of, if you're looking at a map on the internet, for example, to the right of the forbidden city, that's where you'll find a Chaoyang district, you'll find Sanli-Tun, you'll find a lot of the, I don't know, like hip, trendy tourist places. Yeah, that's the central business district. Yeah, it is. It's one of the big downtown spots. The western side of the city is more residential. Again, this is just my perception, but it seems more residential and it doesn't get a whole lot of tourist attention. And I would guess, I would guess even domestic tourist attention, even Beijing citizen attention, if you happen to live on the eastern side of the city. So I really like the idea of developing this kind of steampunk, cyberpunk, cool park that's built out of existing infrastructure from old steel towers.

19:48And you've got great eateries there. You've got the beautiful lake. I've got the hotel. I really like the idea of developing a place on the western side of the city. Yeah, you mentioned like 10 years ago, for instance, nobody would go to at least to this area. There was a theme park over there. Well, yeah, but it's not as popular as what they can offer on the east side of the city. It's kind of an old school park that Beijing children will visit during their school time. Okay. And I'm not saying it's incomparable, but when comparing with universal studios or another theme park on the eastern side of the city, it's less attractive on some levels, especially from the younger crowd. I see. So yeah, you were saying so 10 years ago people wouldn't even consider. Yeah, but now I'm seeing France proactively planning their weekend to go to Shogong Park for different activities. Some people would come here for cycling. I think the western Beijing is very famous for the cycling routes.

20:49Some would come here for hiking. And now with Shogong Park, rock climbing is another very popular activities here. Yeah, you were telling me there's a couple of rock climbing outdoor rock climbing places. Why don't outdoor rock climbing facilities and one indoor? And I really, it's really popular among people here in Beijing. And so when you finish your rock climbing, there are coffee shops outside, you can go a little shopping here and there. And there are a lot of bunch of restaurant choices out there and you can go into one of, they've rebuilt their furnaces for their steel mills into, for example, a restaurant or a hotel. That's so cool. Yeah. In that, that like factory style infrastructures, there are restaurants and also theme parks as well. Outside of that area, it is the park area that we were mentioning. Not only that water shuttle transportation services, also there is the train services that

21:53can just bring you around that whole big park. And this isn't a subway. No, this is a sightseeing train. It is a sightseeing train inside that Yongding River leisure forced park. It's like 2.4 kilometers long with five themed stations. It is like newly opened service, just I think for the opening of the siftis. And that's including a wetland de station and that flower valley station. It is really now, it's a really good time for visiting that place because it is cool outside and it's not that the sun is not that burning anymore. The perfect time of the year to visit there. And when I came to that river side, I saw just one of western Beijing's landmarks that show gum bridge. It's huge. With rushing water flowing underneath and there are just grassy areas on both sides of

22:53the river where people can just sit and relax and picnic on it with plenty of flower fields in between. Just a short walk away. You will just find some really trendy little shops alongside the river. And they're shopping there too, right? Exactly. Is it a full-scale mall? No, it's not. It's how these boutique stores that you can visit. The first phase is designed by some shringen teams so you can see how fashionable they can be. The second phase is designed by some Beijing teams. Some styles but you can still visit and they're having different types of small planting shops or outdoor sportswear shops. Just very niche and fashion. Yeah, that's cool though because it sets them apart from a typical shopping mall. Yeah.

23:53I think a sort of echoing with the SIFTIS theme, the services, because when it comes to the concept of two parks and one river, I think what the SIFTIS is trying to do is trying to make people want to stay hanging around here longer. No matter it's only for some sports activities or for a cup of coffee, for shopping, you just want to come here and relax for a whole day. And I think they are sort of trying to provide the solution in city planning and city development with this concept. Okay. It can be explored to another country, to another city with very similar idea where you can take advantage of what you already have, whether in infrastructure or the river or the parks, and then rebuild them into something people can enjoy a leisure hop for people. It's kind of a showcase. Yes, of the service. And so having SIFTIS in a location like that is just a glove.

24:54It fits like a glove. It's a perfect spot to do it. Yeah, yeah. And I think, yeah, I mean, tricked actually by Yushra's description. I haven't been to the river for a long time. Yeah, we. And you should go and check it out because I've heard Feifei that the sunset there is amazing. Yeah. Is it true, Yushra? Definitely. Would you recommend it? We can go together. That's a deal. That's it for Roundtable for today. I'm Steve. This Feifei, he's the ultra romantic Yushan, and we'll all see you next time. Bye.