Beijing amazed a group of foreign representatives from the UNESCO Creative Cities Network thanks to its strong design industry during the first Creative Cities Beijing Summit, which opened at Beijing Capital Museum on Oct 20.
Beijing's design sector involves 12 fields, ranging from industrial, engineering, construction and fashion. With more than 100 academies, 20,000 institutions of design and 250,000 employees in the industry, Beijing has laid a solid foundation for the development of the design industry. The city has set up 30 design clusters, and the annual income of the sector has reached 100 billion yuan ($16.3 billion).
Beijing was named a "City of Design" by UNESCO in 2012 thanks to its great strengths in S&T innovation and culture creativity. Its State-level research institutes, laboratories and technological centers account for about one-third of the country's total.
As a center of culture, Beijing has 25 libraries, 165 museums and 203 cinemas. It is also one of the top 10 international conference cities since it hosts more than 5,000 international conferences each year.
The city has also gained more global presence in design. Beijing Design Week has been organized for four sessions and has become a major international event. The Red Star Design Award, the industrial design Oscar of China, has attracted more than 5,000 products from over 1,000 enterprises from a group of 103 multinationals, including Samsung, Bosch and ABB.