Walking into the Guangxi pavilion at the 2026 China International Fair for Trade in Services, visitors are immediately struck by the striking contrast between vibrant ethnic traditions and cutting-edge digital technology. This year marks Guangxi's debut as the sole guest of honor province, with a high-level delegation attending the Beijing event and an ambitious "1+1+4" activity framework, featuring one comprehensive exhibition hall, one promotion conference on digital trade cooperation with ASEAN, and four supporting events to showcase its achievements in opening up to ASEAN and unveil fresh opportunities for global services trade cooperation.

Services trade in Guangxi has maintained a growth rate exceeding 20% for three consecutive years. At Shougang Park, the Guangxi comprehensive pavilion, themed "Guangxi Connects ASEAN, Reaching the World," buzzes with activity. The exhibition space uses the dual narrative of a "physical canal and digital canal converging" as its spatial storyline, unfolding across three chapters: "Gateway of Momentum," "Smart Connect ASEAN," and "Harbor of Industry." This design transforms the province's strengths in connectivity, digital capabilities, and cross-border industrial expansion into an immersive journey from physical infrastructure to digital hub.

At the entrance, a striking "Gateway of Momentum" merges bronze drum motifs with digital light projections, drawing crowds of business visitors. As the nation's first smart canal with a full-lifecycle digital twin, the pavilion recreates the entire waterway and hub operations in three dimensions, demonstrating intelligent management scenarios such as big-data scheduling and safety alerts. The "Smart Connect ASEAN" section uses dual-screen displays to highlight the vitality of digital services trade, while the "Industry Harbor" segment presents vivid examples of AI-powered innovation.

Li Shuo, deputy director of the Guangxi Department of Commerce, told reporters that the region's services trade has sustained over 20% annual growth for three consecutive years, with services exports and imports rising 26% year-on-year in the first half of this year. As guest of honor, Guangxi emphasizes substance over form and impact over spectacle, focusing on two core scenarios. First, transforming the comprehensive exhibition hall into an intuitive window for ASEAN-oriented services trade, highlighting cooperation with ASEAN nations in artificial intelligence, cross-border computing power, and digital cultural exchange, alongside practical cases like the Pinglu Canal enabling services trade. Second, pioneering a tri-province collaboration among Guangxi, Beijing, and Hainan to jointly build an open cooperation hub for ASEAN-facing services trade.

Beyond the pavilion, Guangxi also takes center stage at multiple forums. At the ASEAN services trade promotion conference, Wei Tao, chairman of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, presented four signature cards to domestic and international guests: its geographic advantage facing ASEAN and connecting global markets, the transformative canal project linking rivers and seas, its burgeoning AI industry poised for rapid growth, and its distinctive, well-established industrial strengths. During the event, Guangxi, Beijing, and Hainan jointly signed an initiative to deepen coordinated cooperation on ASEAN-facing services trade, establishing a mechanism to foster a fully integrated system where Beijing provides sci-tech innovation and R&D support, Hainan offers offshore policy operations, and Guangxi serves as the ASEAN landing and implementation base. The three regions will leverage their comparative advantages through differentiated yet integrated efforts to strengthen collaboration. A major highlight was the official launch of the "ASEAN-oriented Services Trade Open Cooperation Hub," signaling a new phase in China-ASEAN collaboration on digital and services trade. The event also unveiled multiple research reports, industry guidelines, and innovative products.

In recent years, Guangxi has anchored its strategic position of "facing ASEAN, serving the nation, and connecting the world," seizing major opportunities such as the New Western Land-Sea Corridor and the upgraded China-ASEAN Free Trade Area 3.0. The region has been cultivating new business models and formats, creating distinctive services trade highlights. In 2025, Guangxi's total services trade reached $3.396 billion, up 22% year-on-year, growing 14.6 percentage points faster than the national average, while ASEAN has remained Guangxi's largest trading partner for 26 consecutive years.

At the Shougang Park C12 outdoor area, the "Encounter Guangxi" cultural tourism market buzzes with equal excitement. A row of intangible cultural heritage stalls features the rich aroma of Liubao tea, with inheritors demonstrating traditional brewing techniques to eager visitors. As part of the guest-of-honor activities, the 2026 New Tea Beverage Industry Co-Creation Conference also took place. Gan Yi, Party secretary, station director, and editor-in-chief of Guangxi Radio and Television Station, emphasized in his address that Guangxi serves not only as a "raw material powerhouse" for new-style tea beverages but also as the "first stop" for Chinese tea brands expanding globally. Notably, seven out of every ten cups of milk tea consumed nationwide use ingredients sourced from Guangxi. Hengzhou supplies 60% of the world's jasmine flowers, and other key ingredients such as Guangxi water buffalo milk, Baise mangoes, Lipu taro, and Wuzhou Liubao tea all trace their origins to the region. Guangxi has ranked first nationally in sugar production for 35 consecutive years and in fruit output for eight straight years. The province's services trade has maintained over 20% annual growth for three consecutive years, and its geographic advantage facing ASEAN is evolving from a conceptual asset into logistics reality. With the century-defining Pinglu Canal about to open to full navigation and the China-ASEAN FTA 3.0 agreement signed and implemented, Guangxi is embracing the world with greater openness.

The conference also debuted the "2026 White Paper on Supply Chain Innovation and Development of China's New Tea Beverage Industry." The report reveals that the number of new tea beverage stores nationwide declined by 29,300 in 2025, signaling the industry's shift from a "scale war" to an "efficiency war," with supply chain capability emerging as a brand's core competitive advantage. Approximately 70% of national milk tea ingredients come from Guangxi, which holds unique strengths and competitiveness in supplying core raw materials such as tea leaves, fruits, water buffalo milk, and cassava. According to the white paper, as of the first half of 2026, at least 40 domestic tea beverage brands have established 9,805 overseas stores across Southeast Asia, North America, and the Middle East. Wang Yebing, deputy director of the China-Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park Investment Promotion Bureau, reported that tea imports and exports through Guangxi ports reached approximately 16,000 tons, valued at nearly 300 million yuan, ranking first nationwide. Qinzhou Port currently operates 55 foreign trade routes, 47 of which connect to ASEAN, providing a core logistics channel for tea beverage brands going global. The data further shows that over 60% of the world's jasmine flowers and more than 80% of China's jasmine tea originate from Hengzhou, where the local jasmine planting area exceeded 180,000 mu in 2025, with a combined brand value of 22.669 billion yuan and over 150 new tea beverage brands establishing direct supply bases in the area.