At the “We Are the People; We Are the World - Global Furniture Industry Trend Conference 2021” held on the opening day of 47th CIFF Guangzhou 2021, it was stated how CIFF (Guangzhou) actively empowered the services to build a new development pattern in combination with the interpretation of the development trend of the furniture exhibitions.

At the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), President Xi Jinping has proposed that it is necessary to accurately grasp the new development stage, thoroughly implement the new development concepts and accelerate the building of a new development pattern with mutual promotion of domestic and international circulations focusing on the domestic circulation. Under the background of this era, how should the furniture fair develop to better seize new development opportunities, serve the building of a new development pattern and maintain long-lasting, proactive vitality?

Trend One

Exhibition Positioning: The two major functions of domestic sales and foreign trade are indispensable.

The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of last year made the strategic basis of expanding domestic demand one of the eight key tasks in 2021. China has an ultra-large-scale market consisting of 1.4 billion people unmatched by any economy. Fully tapping the potential of domestic demand is of great significance to the building of a new development pattern. However, President Xi has also emphasized that the new development pattern is not a closed domestic circulation, but a more open and higher-level domestic and international circulations. As the world’s largest furniture exporter, China is still growing against the trend under the influence of the pandemic, showing strong resilience. In 2020, the export value of furniture and its parts from China increased by 12.2% over the previous year, and the cumulative export value from January to February this year increased by 81.7% year on year. The situation of China’s foreign trade continued to improve. The pandemic will end. China’s furniture industry needs a specialized exhibition platform with abundant domestic and foreign merchant resources and super commercial strength, making full use of two markets and two types of resources to help the industry facilitate the domestic and international circulations and achieve high-quality development.

Trend Two

Exhibition Content: Innovation Driven Leads Industry Trends

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has proposed to promote high-quality development as the theme, to deepen supply-side structural reforms as the main line, reform and innovation as the fundamental driving force, and to meet the people's growing needs for a better life as the fundamental goal. With the iterative upgrade of consumer demand, China’s home furnishing market has gradually shifted from function-driven consumption to an emotional consumption stage focusing on quality, design and cultural value. It is imperative to cultivate new kinetic energy with design innovation and empower people to live a beautiful home life. Just as during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, we must “insist on innovation-driven development and accelerate the development of modern industrial systems” and “renovate and upgrade traditional industries”. The future furniture exhibitions shall actively explore new designs, new technologies, new models, new formats and new markets. Innovation driven leads the home furnishing industry to a high-level development stage.

Trend Three

Exhibition Layout: All-round & Coordinated Development of Entire Industry

The Central Economic Work Conference has pointed out that the safety and stability of the industry chain and supply chain is the foundation for building a new development pattern. In the “14th Five-Year Plan” proposal, upgrading the modernization level of the industry chain and supply chain has been the primary task of accelerating the development of a modern industrial system. To achieve the safety and reliability of the industry chain and supply chain while ensuring the adaptation of supply and demand and the smooth operation of all links in the industry, the exhibition needs to develop more diverse themes from the breadth, to connect the upstream, midstream and downstream of the industry from the depth, and to have strong abilities to link the industry and integrate resources. From home to commercial use, from design to manufacturing, from equipment to materials, from finished products to customization, future furniture exhibitions shall actively deploy a full-function platform to promote the innovation, integration and development of various themes in the home furnishing industry based on optimizing and strengthening a single field.

Based on the above three trends, thanks to the full promotion and support of China Foreign Trade Centre (Group) (“CFTC”), on the basis of brainstorming, in-depth research and systematic research & judgment, CIFF (Guangzhou) closely follows the current and future focal points and hotspots of the industry and enterprises according to the industry situation and the actual conditions of the exhibition, repositions the exhibition as “Design Inspiration, Internal & External Circulations and Entire Chain Collaboration” and clarifies the development orientation and action plan for the next period. Under the theme of “promoting the upgrade of traditional consumption in the home furnishing industry and serving the building of a new development pattern”, the 47th CIFF Guangzhou, guided by the new positioning, improves quality while ensuring stability and innovates for change.

1.

Design Inspiration

CIFF (Guangzhou) insists on the innovation-driven and design-inspired development. It has held a variety of theme exhibitions, trend releases and high-end forums to serve the transformation and upgrade of the traditional furniture manufacturing industry, leading the future development of the home furnishing industry. The 47th CIFF (Guangzhou) creates the “Design Spring” Contemporary Chinese Furniture Design Fair and 2030+ International Future Office Exhibition, leading the most cutting-edge trends in the two sectors of home and office furniture. Of which, the “Design Spring” Contemporary Chinese Furniture Design Fair doubled in scale and gathered China’s most influential creative design furniture brands, presenting new design ideas and trends to the industry.

The 2030+ International Future Office Exhibition jointly worked with the China National Furniture Association to open up new themes, new concepts and new ideas in the field of international future office and explore the infinite possibilities of future office.

In addition, there are high-end displays and forums such as CMF Trend Lab, Smart Sleep Exhibition, New Consumption Trend Play Exhibition, Ten Parallel Space Exhibition, Designers to Manufacturers Lab, Design Dream Show (DDS), Top Design 100 City Ranking and Thousand Design Talents Plan, which further enhance the exhibition experience and sense of gain as well as inject innovative ideas and driving force of creative design into the high-quality development of the home furnishing industry.

2.

Internal & External Circulations

CIFF (Guangzhou), driven by domestic sales and foreign trade for the foundation of development, has led China’s furniture export all the way for more than 2 decades, attracted the industry-leading brands to participate in all exhibitions and consistently ranked first among all home furnishing exhibitions in China in terms of the number of overseas buyers. Though overseas merchants were unable to attend the exhibition due to the influence of the pandemic, our overseas promotion and matching services have never been diminished. It has been restoring and accumulating offline normal international exchanges for the post-pandemic era

The 47th CIFF (Guangzhou) implements the “two major plans + three major services”: launches the CIFF Global Partner Program, focusing on inviting international buyers in China to attend the exhibition; deepens the Cross-border Ecommerce Development Program and extensively invites cross-border ecommerce sellers to attend the exhibition and choose products. Meanwhile, by holding the on-site international supply-procurement matching and relying on the online platform, it invites more international buyers to release procurement requirements during the exhibition to match exhibitors; by improving key client services, it promotes the daily contact between key overseas clients and high-quality exhibitors; by innovating in the content and form of communication, it strengthens the international voice and takes multiple measures to promote the domestic and international circulations. Export trade is the unique feature of CIFF (Guangzhou).

Since the pandemic, our overseas merchants and global partners have paid great attention to CIFF and expressed their hope to visit as soon as possible. With the gradual promotion of the COVID-19 vaccines globally, we firmly believe that once the pandemic is over, our international friends will be able to visit as scheduled.

On the basis of continuing to strengthen export, CIFF (Guangzhou) will highlight the domestic sales function in all aspects, gather the national leading furniture brands, select HC28, Camerich, Roling Liangchen and other well-known enterprises, meticulously create the two major interactive exchange ecosystems of CIFF Design Exchange Circle and CIFF Dealers’ Circle to invite designers and dealers from all over China to participate in multiple channels, creating a platform matching and linkage effect. In addition, CIFF also actively explores the real estate circle and invites resources such as real estate and decoration enterprises to promote close ties between the upstream and downstream enterprises.

It is worth mentioning that, in order to actively respond to industry calls, China Foreign Trade Guangzhou Exhibition General Corporation (“CFTE”) under CFTC and Red Star Macalline have further deepened their strategic cooperation in CIFF (Guangzhou), and signed a contract at the opening ceremony. In March 2018, CFTE and Red Star Macalline reached the important strategic cooperation to jointly operate CIFF (Shanghai) and CBD (Shanghai), creating a precedent for the “Exhibition-Mall Alliance” exhibition model for China’s furniture industry. After three years of development, CIFF (Shanghai) has steadily improved the quality, given full play to the leading advantages of domestic sales and gathered leading brands to achieve significant domestic sales effects and help the home furnishing industry facilitate the domestic circulation. Meanwhile, it focuses on creative design, Contemporary Design Hall and Trendy Design Hall, gathers commercial design brands and cutting-edge design brands, and continues to promote the transformation and upgrade of the industry. Facts speak louder than words. Over the past three years, CFTE and Red Star Macalline have fully released the positive energy of complementary advantages and resource integration and continued to empower the development of the industry. Both parties carry forward their successful experience in Shanghai, deepen strategic cooperation, further maximize Red Star Macalline’s resource advantages as the organizer of CIFF (Guangzhou), promote the exhibition-side structural reforms and build CIFF (Guangzhou) into the Number One Exhibition in China’s Home Furnishing Industry to realize the assembly of design brands and leading domestic brands and to build a new development pattern of chain exhibition platform for CIFF (Guangzhou) in Pazhou in March and CIFF (Shanghai) in Hongqiao in September, delivering satisfaction to the industry, exhibitors and audiences.

3.

Entire Chain Collaboration

CIFF (Guangzhou) is the world’s only home furnishing fair featuring the entire industry chain and omni-theme, covering the upstream and downstream themes of the entire industry such as CIFF-Home Furniture, Office Show, Homedecor & Hometextile, Outdoor & Leisure and CIFM/interzum Guangzhou. As a leader in China’s home furnishing exhibition industry, CFTE under CFTC integrates multi-party resources and boasts CIFF as a flagship exhibition in China’s furniture industry and CBD Fair as a “Debut Platform for Champion Enterprises” in China’s building decoration industry. Regardless of scale and influence, it is second to none in the global similar exhibitions. CIFF (Guangzhou) in March and (Shanghai) in September, CBD Fair (Shanghai) in March and (Guangzhou) & (Shenzhen) in July and Guangzhou International Quality Home & Lifestyle Fair in December occupy the prime time of global exhibitions and cover the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, the two most dynamic commercial centers in China. The six exhibitions in the three cities empower each other, integrate and develop, forming the large-scale entire chain collaboration based on the elements such as industry chain, themes, time and locations.

Based on the new development stage, the furniture exhibition can only be driven by domestic sales and foreign trade to objectively reflect and help the current development of the industry, integrate innovation into the trends, promote and lead the future development of the industry to better implement new development concepts and serve the building of a new development pattern. In this sense, CIFF (Guangzhou) is undoubtedly the strongest, most capable and potential leader among the similar exhibitions.

As an important trade promoter in the country, CFTC is a promotion platform for the domestic circulation as well as an important node of the domestic and international circulations and occupies a unique position in the building of a new development pattern. As the China Import & Export Fair Complex (Phase 4) Project under CFTC is put into use next year, CIFF (Guangzhou) will usher in better development space and prospects. Standing at the historical intersection of the “Two Centenary” goals, CIFF (Guangzhou) will implement the new positioning, continue to optimize the exhibitor structure, improve the quality of the exhibition, and link and facilitate both domestic and international markets, making due contributions to the high-quality development of China’s home furnishing industry in the new era.