With a rich program of exhibitions and B2B meetings, Beijing Design Week has set the stage for a dialogue with the international design community at Milan's Salone del Mobile, or Milan Furniture Fair, which kicked off in Italy's design capital on Tuesday.

The new challenge for Beijing Design Week was being an interpreter of a "wider vision of design" through developing new partnerships and forms of business dialogue during the show which runs on 8-13 April, organizers said.

How a global vision of design can be transformed into concrete opportunities for cultural and commercial exchanges? Beijing Design Week's answer was nurturing creative realities and workable proposals that enable design to permeate into everyday life.

For example, the largest delegation of Chinese distributors of made in Italy was present at Salone del Mobile and will take part in the "China Home B2" project of dialogue between Italian and Chinese professionals in the field of furniture design.

Also during the six-day exhibition, a Sino-European Innovation Center supported by Beijing Design Week will be launched to promote bilateral investments in the creativity industry with investment forum, exhibitions, visits and match-making both in China and Europe.

Main supporter of the project was China Red Star Design Award, which since 2006 has encouraged innovative design and promoted the internationalization of design in China.

In fact, the Salone del Mobile was also an occasion to give new life to the Chinese folk tradition. In the "Kanjian project", bamboo, wood, lacquer, ceramics and other traditional materials were used to create objects expressing the essence of history as an integral part of contemporary life.

Beijing Design Week is a government-supported annual festival that since 2011 has established itself as a leading international platform dedicated to the transforming landscape of design in China.

After having been awarded the title of "City of Design" by UNESCO in 2012, Beijing took the festival as a further signal for the growing potential of Chinese creativity and for the rebranding of the "Made in China" concept as "Designed in China."

During the 2012 edition of Beijing Design Week, Milan was protagonist of the festival's Guest City program, highlighting an increasing cooperation in the design field between the two countries.