Peking University 中文
Peking University 中文
Current location: Home > News > Campus > Content
背景图

The 14th China Economic Conference

Date:


December 13th was an important day on the campus of Peking University Shenzhen, as PHBS, its international business school, hosted the “14th China Economics Annual Conference”-- and the opening ceremony was a promising one. 

The event kicked off in the morning when the host, Professor Wu He Mao, the Chinese Economic Conference Secretary General and Peking University National School of Development, welcomed everyone to PHBS. He then introduced the first speaker, the Former Assistant Dean of Peking University, Peking University General Committee Deputy Director, China Economic Conference Board of Director and PHBS Dean, Professor Hai Wen.

His opening words were on this year’s theme, which was “China Development.” In his words, “China has gone through a lot of transformation in the past thirty years” and “we have to be very careful about how to interpret this development.” Professor Hai Wen added that it was important to explain the methods and strategies used to get China to where it is today, learn from them in the way that they will serve us in years to come.
 
Second to come to stage was Shenzhen Deputy Mayor, Mr. Tang Jie, who spoke about the development of Shenzhen and told the audience that this development was based on innovation, as its driving force. He then added that “Shenzhen is not only known for innovation and technology, trade accounts for a large part of the city’s GDP.” Mr. Tang Jie sees the future of the city in high technology, with the examples of Xiaomi and Huawei reflecting his statement. Companies like these have been successful in part because economic and labor factors have been adequate in Shenzhen. These success stories will be followed by many, as he expects the city to transform its vision from quantity to quality.

Third to offer his insight was Professor Zhiqiang Bai, Vice Dean of PKU who welcomed everyone to the event and reminded the audience that the goal was to discuss changes in China’s economy. This year, Shenzhen is a symbol and PHBS is even a greater one.

PHBS has been launched in 2001, as the first initiative to relocate the best Chinese universities to the southern regions. The goal of this project is to provide international standards to Chinese and international students and permit Chinese companies to go global.
 
After Professor Zhiqiang Bai came Professor Liu Zun Yi, CIC International (Hong Kong) LLC Company Director and Former Dean of CUHK. He started his presentation by praising the growth of the Chinese economy in the past 30 years. Then he compared the Chinese and American economies, as well as the growth strategies they have used. He stated that “the Chinese economy had a long way to go before catching up to the US economy in terms of GDP per capita.” He then posed an important question: “Is China going to grow even more or is it going to slow down like the US and Japanese economies?” His answer was that the fundamentals of the Chinese economy were solid, savings were high and investment did not rely only on foreign capital. He also said that a great deal of transformation will take place in future years. So far agriculture represents less than 10% of China’s GDP. In the 1950’s, this number was much higher and his expectation was that it will only go down and eventually represent less than 2%.

In contrast, services represent 40 % of China’s GDP, which is in line with other developed countries. In this regards, he remarked that China exports more than other countries but states “the economy will change as the service sector will grow”.

For the future, China needs to think about a sustainable development strategy. Transportation system, health care, education, environmental control, and securing clean air; all these issues are paramount for the economic prosperity of the country. He concluded by saying that maybe a slower Chinese economy would be a better idea for everyone.
 
The audience was very fortunate to see the National Economic Institute Director, Professor Fan Gang present his ideas in this conference. In his allocation, he focused on China’s growth and stated that “China’s average growth in the past 30 years was in average around 10%.” As his predecessors of the day, he asked the important question: “Is China going to use the same economic decisions that were used in Western countries?” To him, comparing China to the United States and European countries was a major mistake because China is still a developing country. To further its development, China has to open its doors to advanced technology and promote learning because it was the only way to narrow the gap between China and the developed countries. To conclude, Professor Fan Gang said that manufacturing was the most important aspect for development and Chinese leaders have to encourage more people to enter this world.
 
Then it was the turn of Peking University National Research and Development Assistant Dean Professor Lu Feng, who spoke about how China has been catching up with other countries and how this progression has started years ago.

To Professor Feng, the catching up process has different speeds and characteristics, as it was important to differentiate between countries and wrong to say that they should use the same strategies to develop their economies. Each country has its own specific needs, strategies and competitive advantages.
China should keep working on its weaknesses to complete the catching up process, which started before the 2008 financial crisis, to equal and hopefully surpass leading countries.
 
Last but not least was Professor Zhang Yan Sheng who spoke about “Establishing a New Comprehensive Structure: Opportunities, Challenges and Outlook.”  Professor Sheng is the National Development and Reform Commission Director of Foreign Economic Research. He reminded the audience that the economic policies from the past 30 years were successful and that it was important to think about the next 30 years as well. To be successful in this journey, sustainable development should be the path for the Chinese economy, as China has sufficient money but not enough capital. The money should be used for more global cooperation and new green trends should be introduced to raise the human and knowledge capitals.

Written by: Hicham Lefnaoui
                                                   
  


Scroll to top

Latest News

MORE
Links
Your PKUSZ
Follow Us

Copyright © 2021 Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School. All rights reserved. Email: iao@pku.edu.cn

粤ICP备12081285号