CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- Recently, Chongqing has been officially designated as the City of Design in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), according to the news released by the official website of UNESCO. It is the first City of Design in western China and the fifth City of Design in China following Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, and Wuhan.

Chongqing has confidence in its ability to become a City of Design

As the only municipality directly under the central government in western China, Chongqing is strategically important in China and has geographical advantages. It is home to a wide range of manufacturing industries such as automobiles, motorbikes, electronics, equipment, pharmaceuticals, materials, consumer goods, and energy, which has developed a unique advantage and provided a good foundation for the design industry.

Today, Chongqing boasts more than 300 design parks (bases) covering industrial design, engineering design, and fashion design, ten national industrial design centers, 165 municipal industrial design centers, 18 municipal industrial design research institutes, and 89 district-level and county-level industrial design centers, forming a hierarchical cultivation system for the design industry. The sales revenue of designed products of national and municipal industrial design centers exceeded 210 billion yuan for the first time.

Many Chongqing enterprises have benefited from the development of industrial design. For example, many new-energy models such as DEEPAL and AVATR launched by Changan Auto, the leading car manufacturer in Chongqing, have been well recognized by the market with an increasing order volume year by year. It’s obvious that the manufacturer has made bold breakthroughs in the industrial design of these new models, which include exterior design, interior design, and instruments.

The development of industrial design enhances the innovation and competitiveness of manufacturing enterprises and plays an important role in developing the new driving force for economic growth and the internationalization of enterprises, said the head of the Chongqing Industrial Design Industry Alliance.

Chongqing takes effective measures to build a City of Design

Chongqing has accelerated the construction of a national demonstration city for characteristic industrial design since 2022. It issued the Action Plan for Chongqing to Establish a City of Design and then released Several Policies on Accelerating the Building of a City of Design in December 2022. Chongqing launched a series of incentives and support measures to boost the development of the design industry.

At the 2023 China Manufacturing Design Conference and Yuelai International Design Forum held at the Smart China Expo in September this year, the Chongqing Municipal Economic and Information Technology Commission announced the list of application scenarios (industrial design) for the development of a City of Design in Chongqing. Based on the modern manufacturing cluster system consisting of three trillion-level leading industrial clusters, three 500-billion pillar industrial clusters, six one-hundred-billion-level featured and advantageous industrial clusters, and 18 “new star” industrial clusters, the list comprehensively and systematically introduces the development needs of Chongqing's industrial design, points out the development trends of 13 industries including intelligent connected and new-energy vehicles and new-generation electronic information manufacturing, and sorts out 83 application scenarios such as vehicle design and AI big data.

It is worth mentioning that on the same day of the opening of the forum, Chongqing took ten orders for the development of the design industry, which covered financial support, platform construction, industrial integration, technology exchange, and talent training, empowering the development of the manufacturing industry with industrial design. These projects will make up for the deficiencies of supporting services, promote the orderly construction of supporting service systems, and open up a new prospect in Chongqing’s design field.

Chongqing set up aims and objectives for the construction of a City of Design

The Action Plan for Chongqing to Establish a City of Design proposed to complete at least five municipal industrial design institutes, develop one characteristic national industrial design institute, and build at least 15 national industrial design centers and more than 250 municipal industrial design centers by 2025.

Efforts will be made to constantly optimize the industrial layout and coordinate the industry's strengths and resources. By 2025, Chongqing Design Park, Chongqing’s Industrial Design City, Headquarters of Chongqing Industrial Design, and other design parks will be built to integrate more than 500 industrial design-related organizations and enterprises. The revenue from design services will exceed 10 billion yuan.

In terms of talent training and recruitment, Chongqing will support Chongqing University, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, and other universities and colleges to establish several first-class design schools, produce and introduce five design masters with international influence, and train more than 1,000 outstanding industrial designers by 2025.

In addition, following the vision of “industrial design +”, Chongqing will encourage the integrated development of industrial design, rural revitalization, urban regeneration, culture and art, and the revitalization and utilization of industrial heritage, so as to create a sound environment for the development of design industry. In the future, design institutions will actively make innovation, more and more enterprises will benefit from innovative design products, and the general public will embrace a high-quality life brought by innovative design. (Translated by Yuki, Fathom Language Limited)