E-commerce expo kicks off in Qingdao

The 2026 Yellow River Basin Cross-Border E-commerce Expo opened on Thursday in Qingdao's West Coast New Area in Shandong province, bringing together more than 60 industrial clusters from 19 provincial-level regions, along with nearly 40 cross-border e-commerce platforms.

The three-day event runs through Saturday and focuses on three key objectives: connecting businesses with manufacturers, expanding cross-border e-commerce opportunities and boosting foreign trade.

Organizers said the expo integrates resources across the entire cross-border e-commerce value chain, including source factories, global e-commerce platforms, logistics hubs, overseas marketing services, compliance support and artificial intelligence technologies.

In addition to showcasing traditional export-oriented industries, this year's expo highlights emerging sectors such as AI applications, cultural exports, sports-related businesses and the growing "solo economy" market, organizers said. More than 30 supporting industry events, including forums, matchmaking sessions and business exchanges, will be held during the event.

This is the expo's fifth installment since its launch in 2022. Over the past four years, it has facilitated industrial and supply-chain cooperation worth a cumulative 2.18 billion yuan ($320 million).

The event has grown into a high-level platform for industrial collaboration, brand expansion into overseas markets and supply-chain coordination in the nine provinces and autonomous regions along the Yellow River, said Gao Shanwu, deputy secretary of the Qingdao West Coast New Area Working Committee and director of the administrative committee of the Qingdao Area of China (Shandong) Pilot Free Trade Zone.