During my stay in Foshan I was fortunate to attend an annual design conference in Guangdong Industrial Design City in Shunde. The purpose of the event is to support design—mainly industrial design—in the Pearl River Delta area by bringing together what they call “Three Regions Cross Straits” (Guangdong, China-Hong Kong-Taiwan) and link with other international players such as Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the USA. Midea—the world’s number two household appliance manufacturer in sales, behind Whirlpool—is based here.

Guangdong Industrial Design City is a design innovation incubation centre that holds design studios and showrooms. Shunde’s development plan for GIDC is to include a design museum, design hotel and restaurants.  I look forward to visiting again.