China's furniture industry promotes creative design

China's furniture industry is promoting global cooperation and encouraging innovative design of domestic brands, Che Jianfang, vice president of Red Star Macalline, a leading brand in the Chinese furniture market, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Che was speaking on the sidelines of a conference held in Duomo Square, the heart of Milan, on Wednesday to present Red Star Macalline's project of an "international platform" for fostering dialogue and partnerships between Chinese and foreign companies.

From April 8 to 13, Italy is hosting the annual furniture fair at the Italian design capital. "Red Star Macalline was already present at the 2012 and 2013 editions with exhibitions that showcased China's creativity, and this time we have brought our best professionals," Che said.

Representatives of China's furniture industry gathered in Milan along with professionals and designers from various European countries. The project was intended to build up contacts and offer better services to global brands, as well as expanding Chinese design abroad, Che said.

Headquartered in Shanghai, Red Star Macalline is one of the largest national furniture mall chains in China, with 130 stores in more than 90 cities throughout the country. But the company's growth process, the vice president underlined, was not without difficulties in the context of a rapidly-changing market.

With more than 1.3 billion consumers and a fast-developing economy, China is enormously attractive for the world of furniture. Global design companies, however, need a solid platform to dialogue with Chinese counterparts and build ties based on mutual knowledge and respect in order to capitalize on this momentum, Che said.

At the same time, Red Star Macalline has a role in redefining China's position in the world through exporting Chinese design. "It was hurting for me to know that China was often described abroad as a country void of creativity and inclined to copy other peoples' ideas," she told Xinhua.

"China does have creativity," Che highlighted. The only problem is that Chinese creativity is not enough known, and Red Star Macalline will continue to expand Chinese design abroad through a series of campaigns, also with the support of Beijing Design Week, an important government-backed festival dedicated to design in China, she said.

The Innovation Design Union that Che established last year with the support of China's furniture world, she explained to Xinhua, was among the concrete actions launched to fulfill the social responsibility of shifting China's role from the factory floor of the world to an inventor and innovator.