Furniture China 2012 Remains Strong Despite Global Economic Pressures

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Oct 15, 2012, 09:00 ET

SHANGHAI, Oct. 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- As one of the biggest international furniture exhibitions in the world, Furniture China has already become the must-attend exhibition for the world furniture industry. Despite the weak economy around the world, Furniture China 2012 was successfully concluded in Shanghai on 15 September, 2012.

Besides the key Chinese furniture enterprises, there were around 190 overseas companies participating as exhibitors, including nine pavilions: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, Indonesian, the Philippines, Malaysian and Singaporean.

The exhibition lasted 5 days and attracted 71,980 visitors, including 52,287 local visitors and 19,693 from overseas. In addition, these international visitors were from 140 countries & regions, consisting of 44.29% Asian (including the Middle East), 26.41% European, 10.59% North American, 9.36% Oceanic, 5.81% Latin American, 3.54% African.

The Top 30 best represented countries/regions for international visitors and their no. of visitors were: Australia (1,534), USA (1,501), Hong Kong (1,225), Korea (1,119), Japan (1,039), India (898), Malaysia (850), Taiwan (816), Russia (693), UK (628), France (618), Canada (585), Thailand (466), Italy (442), Singapore (412), Germany (406), Indonesia (318), Brazil (289), South Africa (283), New Zealand (279), Philippines (263), Spain (255), Turkey (251), Mexico (250), Belgium (239), Netherlands (211), Saudi Arabia (192), Denmark (183), UAE (175) and Vietnam (163).

Design is always a popular topic. For the furniture industry, how to make furniture products more attractive and special but still comfortable and humanistic is the eternal pursuit of designers and manufacturers. During this year's exhibition, two locations were arranged mainly about design: Hall W5 (Design Hall) at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC) and DoD (Design of Designers) at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center (SWEECC).

There were 60 companies in Hall W5 displaying their latest products and design styles. And the organizer joined hands with "TRENDS" together launch the "Mock-up Room". 500 sqm were occupied exclusively for this space where eight designers did live arrangement and design which reflected complete personalized style and trend forecast of home furnishing with the support of more than 50 pieces of representative furniture works selected from exhibitors.

DoD (Design of Designers) was another great opportunity to discover many pieces of furniture created by talented designers and to join the forums and presentations on the relevant topics. It was the first time to have such platform that the exhibitors can only be the designers. During 11-14 September, 6,095 visitors in total visited DoD and came in to contact with many design works that tagged with "HOME".

As the other highlights during Furniture China 2012, two pre-eminently important conferences: World Furniture Summit 2012 and World Healthy Sleep Industry Conference 2012 also received much recognition and favourable comments.

As the most anticipated furniture summit of the year, the 2012 World Furniture Summit was successfully held on 11 September at the Shanghai Pudong Kerry Hotel. The World Furniture Summit was bigger than ever before, featuring more than 427 industry elites from 200 well-known enterprises and 40 industry media from home and abroad. The organizer invited 18 powerful guests to attend this summit from the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Australia, Mexico, Turkey, Russia, Romania, Brazil and Japan. They illustrated the current state of affairs in the furniture industry, and communicated some of their more advanced concepts to us during the summit. As one of the top furniture industry summits in China, it not only maintained a professional approach towards sharing and collaboration, but also engendered an open field of vision and profound thought. According to statistics, members of the China National Furniture Association and representatives of furniture associations worldwide accounted for about 74% of the total number of participants. Indeed, more than 50% of them were chairman, CEOs, directors and decision makers. According to feedback from delegates, the keynote speech and information dissemination made a huge impact on the attending enterprises, and they will henceforth be able to more accurately grasp the direction of the future development of the furniture industry. Further, the attendees were also concerned about emerging overseas furniture markets and certain mature markets, matters which were discussed at the round table discussion.

Mr. Zhengfa Bu, the president of the China National Light Industry Council said: "The World Furniture Summit provides a real and active platform for professionals from all over the world." Mr. Pedro Romero, the chairman of the International Alliance of Furnishing Publications (IAFC) said, "For IAFP is an honor participating with this very important group of relevant players in the world furniture market to have this international meeting. Our goal is common: 'Improving a new development of the furniture industry despite the recent global financial crisis.'"

The 2012 World Healthy Sleep Industry Conference was held on 12 September at Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center. In order to improve the development of the healthy sleep industry, the summit focused on several points such as product innovation, brand building, and mattress industry consumption trends. During the conference, Mr. Mauro Spinelli, the senior expert of CSIL Industry and Country Studies, shared information on 2013 mattress industry consumption and product trends. He believes that the Chinese mattress market has been booming. With a consumption growth rate of 24% per year, China has become the world's second largest mattress market. With the right production technology and the continuous improvement of its production capacity, China will soon become the world's second largest mattress exporter. From a long-term perspective, "Environmental Protection" will be the keywords for mattress industry development in the future.