The World Design Cities Conference 2025 (WDCC 2025), jointly organized by the Shanghai municipal government and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, will be held in Shanghai from Sept 25 to 28, local officials said during a news conference on Wednesday.

The event will include two major exhibitions held concurrently in Shanghai and overseas, an international design forum with 100 participants and two thematic forums on global creative city design, said Zhang Ying, director of Shanghai Economic and Informatization Commission.

WDCC 2025 will also feature specialized forums in five design fields of industrial, architectural, fashion, digital and service. Five industry ecosystem-themed sessions will also be held to facilitate demand-supply matching, investment promotion, product launches, fashion shows and talent recruitment, said Zhang.

The main exhibition in Shanghai will cover an area of approximately 15,000 square meters, attracting about 500 brands to showcase over 3,000 exhibits. About 20 percent of participants are internationally well-established brands while around 60 percent are emerging brands, she added.

The overseas exhibition will focus on promoting Shanghai's design and fashion consumer goods abroad. In addition, an exhibition is scheduled to take place in Paris in late September during the Bonjour Brand Forum while another will be held in Italy during the Milan Fashion Week. Exhibitions and matchmaking events are also scheduled to take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in late October.

Furthermore, a new U35 youth design talent program will be introduced for the first time this year to formulate favorable policies and support startup projects of young talents.

According to Zhang, Shanghai's creative design industry has been reporting double-digit annual growth over the past few years, with its size exceeding 1.6 trillion yuan ($230 billion) so far. A complete industrial layout combining industrial design, architectural design and fashion design has been established in the city.

Hosting events like the WDCC and the co-current "Shanghai Design 100+" global competition has facilitated the conversion of design achievements valued over 250 billion yuan. The design industry ecosystem is continuously improving, fostering 21 national-level industrial design centers and 200 municipal-level design innovation centers, she added.