NECC (Shanghai) is a cooperation project launched by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Shanghai Municipal People's Government in 2011, designed to be a super center for holding exhibitions, conferences and events and offering office space and hotel services. It is located in the west of the core section of Hongqiao Central Business District, close to Hongqiao Airport and Hongqiao Railway Station, connected to the East Xujing Station of Shanghai Metro Line 2 as well as the city's elevated roads and nearby expressways. It was jointly designed by the East China Architectural Design & Research Institute (ECADI) and the Architectural Design & Research Institute of Tsinghua University.

With a total floor area of 1.47 million square metres, NECC (Shanghai) has a facade featuring curved curtain walls and 240 pillars, which symbolize “the exceptional vitality of grass” and present a sleek yet magnificent image. It has a total exhibition area of 500,000 square metres, including 400,000 square metres indoors and 100,000 square metres outdoors.

On November 1, 2018, four days before the opening of the first CIIE, the demonstration zone for integrated green development of the Yangtze River Delta region was officially unveiled. The zone includes the “four-leaf clover” where the Expo would be held. On November 13, the first day that the Expo opened to the public, Shanghai announced the Implementation Plan on Accelerating the Development of Hongqiao Central Business District and Creating an Open International Hub. The “four-leaf clover” was once again included in the plan. These are just like footnotes to the significance of “openness” to Shanghai.

Every year after 2018, the “four-leaf clover” will stage the CIIE and serve as China's open platform to the world. Part of what is fantastic about physical exhibitions is the flow of visitors. Despite the Internet being so advanced now, NECC (Shanghai), nicknamed “four-leaf clover”, uses space to build a special platform that facilitates interactions, a miracle for exchanges that cannot be replicated in the online world. As an important decision made by China to pursue a new round of high-level openingup and China's major initiative to still widen market access to the rest of the world, with the “four-leaf clover” as its symbol, CIIE has witnessed China's opening-up and Shanghai's rapid development.