As part of its 10th anniversary as a UNESCO Creative City of Design, Shanghai (People’s Republic of China) organized a three-day celebration themed “Design Your Better Life”.

The festivities kicked off with the opening ceremony at the Shanghai Exhibition Center gathering more than 500 stakeholders such as government officials, experts, representatives of associations, companies and media. In addition, over 20 Creative Cities from China and worldwide joined the celebration either in presential or online including Beijing, Changsha, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Macao SAR, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Suzhou and Wuhan as well as Helsinki (Finland), Geelong (Australia), Graz (Austria), Kobe and Nagoya (Japan), Montreal (Canada), Saint-Étienne (France) and Singapore (Singapore).

The city also organized several citywide events dedicated to design, architecture and fashion, such as the "Sustainable Fashion: The Power of Creative Design for Business Ecology " Forum that invited design experts to discuss about the sustainable development of Shanghai's fashion industry.

Through the promotion and implementation of policies in the creative design industries, Shanghai has continuously supported the growth of the design sector. In 2019, the creative design industry achieved an added value of more than 333 billion yuan (approximately 51 billion USD), accounting for more than 8.73% of the city’s GDP for the year.