Ethiopia and Russia named guests of honour at Hainan winter farm fair
The 29th Hainan Winter Trade Fair opens in Haikou on 3 December, with Ethiopia and Russia as joint guests of honour. The event will feature 17 national pavilions and a new export zone.
Ethiopian coffee beans and Russian ice cream will be among the highlights at China’s tropical farm fair this December. Both countries have been named guests of honour at the 29th Hainan International Tropical Agricultural Products Winter Trade Fair.
Known in Chinese as the dongjiaohui (冬交会), the fair will run from 3 to 6 December 2026 at the Hainan International Convention and Exhibition Center in Haikou. The organising committee confirmed the dates and guests of honour in late October. The fair has been held every year since 1998.
Ethiopia’s pavilion will display premium coffee beans, speciality farm products and tourism offers. It will also feature products and services from Ethiopian Airlines. Russia will showcase meat, dairy products, ice cream, pastries, biscuits, chocolate and honey, TASS reported.
Another 15 countries have confirmed pavilions: Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Colombia, Kenya, Malaysia, New Zealand, Serbia, Slovakia, Thailand, Uganda, Vietnam and Zambia. That brings the total to 17 countries so far, with more expected to join.
The fair will cover 75,000 square metres of exhibition space, about the size of ten football pitches. Hainan Daily reported in April that organisers expected around 20,000 professional visitors and 200,000 visits over the four days.
Hainan Daily also described it as China’s only trade fair for premium tropical produce. The organisers’ own listing for the fair forecasts more than 25,000 professional trade buyers.
Last year’s fair gives an idea of the business it can generate. The 2025 event recorded about RMB 596 million in on-site sales, RMB 1.55 billion in orders and RMB 5.17 billion in signed projects, People’s Daily reported at the time. More than 10,000 trade buyers attended the four-day event, with Thailand and Pakistan as guests of honour.
This year’s fair will also be the first since Hainan introduced island-wide special customs operations on 18 December 2025. The change makes it easier for overseas goods to enter Hainan and allows more goods to qualify for zero tariffs. However, goods sent from Hainan to mainland China still face normal customs checks.
To make use of these changes, organisers are introducing a new “agricultural brands going global” zone (农业品牌出海专区) for the first time. The zone will use Hainan’s free-trade-port policies to help Chinese agricultural brands sell overseas and bring foreign produce to Chinese shoppers, People’s Daily said.
Registration for professional visitors is free and already open through the fair’s official WeChat mini-program, according to Haikou Bendibao, a city information service. The same report, published on 31 October, said ticket registration for the general public had not yet opened.
As of 9 November, the registration pages linked from the fair’s official website still showed details for the 2025 event. Visitors should check the website again closer to 3 December for updated information about the 2026 fair.
The fair ends on 6 December, just 12 days before the first anniversary of Hainan’s island-wide special customs operations on 18 December.
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