On the morning of September 22, the fifth China International Small and Medium Enterprises Fair (CISMEF) and Sino-Korea Small and Medium Fair (SME) Fair opened ceremoniously in Guangzhou Pazhou International Conference and Exhibition Center. Zhang Dejiang, vice-premier of the State Council, and concurrently committee member of the Central Political Bureau, attended the opening ceremony and declared the opening of the ceremony. Some leaders delivered speeches during the ceremony including Huang Huahua, governor of Guangdong province, Ouxinqian, vice minister of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and relative leaders of Korea, the country of honor. The ceremony was also attended by the delegations from every provinces, autonomous regions , municipalities, Korea, 45 ASEM member countries.

There are over 6000 booths available for this session of CISMEF, with overseas booths of 1500 and domestic booths of over 4600. The exhibition area of this session has exceeded 120,000 square meters, over 20,000 square meters more than original planning with 13 exhibition halls. Thus, the scale of this session is the biggest in the previous session of CISMEF.