Twelve Portuguese Design Brands Share One Shanghai Showroom, Betting on Premium Buyers While China's Property Slump Drags On

Twelve Portuguese furniture, tableware and home brands have taken a shared showroom in one of Shanghai's main furniture and decoration centres, betting that a design-led, premium pitch can find buyers in China despite years of crisis in its property market.

The exhibition, "Not a Love Story: A Journey Through Portuguese Contemporary Design", runs at the Cimen Mall until 7 October, the Lusa news agency reported from Shanghai on Sunday. It brings together Serip, Carolim, Porcel, Cockburn's, Abyss, Habidecor, Costa Nova, Delta, Cutipol, Herdmar, Vista Alegre and Healsi, showing lamps, porcelain, cork, textiles and cutlery side by side.

Scattered, and small

The point is to put in one place an offer that is usually spread across different distributors and shops. "In a local market, Portuguese products are still quite scattered," said Huang Liu, who has represented the lighting brand Serip in China since 2011 and is one of the organisers.

The numbers show how small the business still is. According to Instituto Nacional de Estatística (National Statistics Institute, INE) data supplied to Lusa by AICEP, the Agência para o Investimento e Comércio Externo de Portugal (Portugal's trade and investment agency):

• Portugal exported 1.2 million euros of furniture to China in the first half of this year.
• Home textile sales reached 1.46 million euros, down 8 percent on the same period of 2025. China takes only 0.4 percent of the sector's exports.
• Cutlery went the other way: exports to China rose 468.1 percent to 290,000 euros, making China Portugal's ninth-largest customer for it.

Selling into a slump

The timing is awkward. Chinese house prices have fallen by about 20 percent since their 2019 peak according to official data, and by close to 40 percent on unofficial estimates, and nearly 70 percent of household wealth in China is tied up in housing. For a sector that lives off people buying and furnishing homes, that matters.

Luís Costa, AICEP's delegate in Shanghai, said Portuguese firms have accepted that they cannot compete on cost with Chinese manufacturers, in one of the world's biggest furniture-making countries. "They compete on design," he said. He pointed to materials, sustainability and a Portuguese identity built on the ocean and cultural tradition, and said that despite a contraction in domestic demand there is still demand for more "premium", higher-quality products.

Huang made the same case more bluntly. "We are not IKEA. We do not need to sell enormous quantities. We just need to reach our target customers and work with them." Serip sells in China mainly to private homes.

A cheaper way than trade fairs

Costa said the scale of the Chinese market and the resources it demands make joint action essential: "Individually, the companies have merit, but together they are stronger." The initiative also tests an alternative to the big trade fairs, which require companies to pay for stands, send staff and ship products. At the Cimen, where single and multi-brand stores work as showrooms for consumers, designers and trade buyers, the brands did not have to send staff, and they benefit from the mall's own promotion. Footfall is expected to rise during the Golden Week holiday, which starts on 1 October. The show has already put the firms in touch with Chinese distributors and importers based there.

The display is laid out as a story, following a couple from their first meeting through marriage and the start of a life together, in settings inspired by Lisbon, Madeira and the Algarve.

AICEP's overseas network is expanding elsewhere too: this morning we reported that it will open a trade office in Caracas. Vista Alegre, one of the brands in Shanghai, left the Lisbon stock market this month.