The 8th Lingnan Forum——New Era, New Bay Area, and New Mission was successfully held on October 12
On October 12, the 8th Lingnan Forum, co-sponsored by Lingnan(University) College of Sun Yat-sen University and Caixin Media, was held in Liang Qiuju Hall, the South Campus of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. This forum was guided by the Guangdong Development and Reform Committee, with the theme of New Era, New Bay Area, and New Mission. At present, the global economic growth momentum had weakened, trade and investment had slowed, and downward pressure on the domestic economy had also increased. The Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao Greater Bay Area, as one of China's most open and the strongest economicregions, was regarded as an important growth pole for the future economy. The 8th Lingnan Forum, focusing on New Era, New Bay Area and New Mission, provided suggestions for building an international first-tier bay area and a world-class city cluster. Professor Sun Dongbai, executive vice president of Sun Yat-sen University attended the meeting and delivered an opening speech. Professor Liu Mingkang, honorary dean of Lingnan (University) College of Sun Yat-sen University and former chairman of China Banking Regulatory Committee, made a concluding speech, and the dean of Lingnan, prof. Lu Jungave a closing speech. The forum also gathered important guests such as government leaders, experts, scholars, and entrepreneurs to discuss the new journey of reform in the new era. More than 1,000 teachers, students, and alumni attended the forum.
Professor Sun Dongbai, executive vice president of Sun Yat-sen University, delivered an opening speech. On behalf of the school, he thanked the Guangdong Development and Reform Committee for its guidance and the Guangdong leadership for their support. He also gave welcome toaudience from all walks of life, alumni, teachers and students who attended the forum. He introduced the current situation, the development concept and construction direction of Sun Yat-sen University and the layout of Three Campuses and Five Campuses, and expected the Lingnan Forum to actively engage in promoting the economic development of Guangdong Province and the construction of the Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao Greater Bay Area.
Sun Dongbai, Executive Vice President of Sun Yat-sen University, delivered the opening speech
Mr. Weijia Wang, the founding managing partner of AimTop Ventures, a venture capital from Silicon Valley, first gave a speech on AI. He believed that the essence of artificial intelligence today was data relevance and knowledge. Industries with the following three characteristics would be impacted or even subverted by artificial intelligence: first, a large amount of data was generated during production and service; second, these data had sufficient complexity; third, this industry had a strong capital support.
Wang Weijia gave a keynote speech
Ding Liguo, chairman of Delong Group, used his own practices as cases to share the experience of the mixed reform of the state-owned enterprises. He emphasized that persistence was the entrepreneurial spirit, and emphasized that the promotion of the mixed-system of the state-owned enterprises proposed by the central government was a need for development. He also pointed out that one of the keys to the mixed reform of the state-owned enterprises was the change of concept.
Ding Liguo gave a keynote speech
Xiao Jingyi, head of the Shenzhen Blue Sea Greater Bay Area Legal Service Research Institute and executive chairman of the Shenzhen Blue Sea Modern Law Service Development Center, delivered a speech on The Difficulties and Prospects of Legal Cooperation in the Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao Greater Bay Area. She said that there were many difficult issues that needed to be resolved in the process of legal cooperation in the Greater Bay Area, including coordination under different jurisdictions, in-equivalent management and legislative rights of the three regions, and cultural differences between these three places, such as differences in legal risk awareness, etc.
The solution might involve the following aspects: first, these three regions should establish a daily communication and coordination mechanism on the basis of CEPA; second, the problem of substantive laws; third, we must further strengthen judicial assistance.
Xiao Jingyi gave a keynote speech
Chen Kai, chief partner of financial services for EY Greater China, CEO-elect, and member-elect of the Global Executive Committee, gave a speech titled Opportunities and Challenges for the Development of Cross-border Financial Services in the Greater Bay Area. He said, the development of financial cooperation in the Greater Bay Area was a dynamic and evolving process. The integration of systems, the coordination of supervision, the connectivity of markets, the mutual establishment of institutions, and the certification aspect all required time and resources to implement. There were still many obstacles for residents of the three regions to obtain access to thefinancial services, including the following three aspects, respectively, payment, investment, and insurance.
Chen Kai gave a keynote speech
The round table discussion in the afternoon centered around two topics, Building the Greater Bay Area Science and Innovation Industrial Belt and Promoting the High-Quality Development of SMEs.
Round Table Discussion 1: Building the Greater Bay Area Science and Innovation Industrial Belt
The first round table discussion was chaired by Zhang Bin, deputy dean and professor in management at Lingnan(University) College of Sun Yat-sen University. Cao Dahua, executive deputy director of the Greater Bay Area Office of Guangdong, He Xiaojun, party secretary and director of Guangdong Local Financial Supervision Administration, Tang Jie, former deputy mayor of Shenzhen, professor of Economics and Management in Harbin University of Technology (Shenzhen), He Qinghua, president of Shanhe Intelligent Equipment Group, chairman of Shanhe Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd., and Wang Yuhai, board director, executive vice president of Ruizhi Technology and president of Technology Empowerment Division participated in the discussion. The guests centered on what are the advantages and challenges of the Greater Bay Area to creating an international science and technology innovation center; how to strengthen regional technological innovation cooperation and build a modern industrial system; financing is critical to technological innovation, especially start-ups, how financial institutions respond to challenges and promote development and other topics for in-depth discussion.
The first round table discussion
Zhang Bin
Cao Dahua
He Xiaojun
Tang Jie
He Qinghua
Wang Yuhai
Round table discussion 2: Boosting the high-quality development of SMEs
The second round table discussion was chaired by ZhongZhengsheng, chairman and chief economist of Monita Research, and managing director of Caixin Think Tank. Chen Yongjie, former deputy secretary-general of China International Economic Exchange Center, and former director of the Research Office of the National Federation of Industry and Commerce, Guan Tao, doctoral supervisor in economics of Wuhan University, former director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, Xiao Geng, professor of financial practice at HSBC Business School of Peking University, chairman of Hong Kong International Finance Association, Zhang Jianhuadeputy secretary of the Party Committee and president of Huaxia Bank, Liu Bo, founder and CEO of Dashu Finance participated in the discussion. In the context of the complex situation and the impact of new technologies, the guests expressed their opinions and discussed issues such as how SMEs innovate and upgrade in the future and how the financial industry should continue to innovate and improve services to effectively solve financing bottlenecks.
Forum site
Zhong Zhengsheng
Chen Yongjie
Guan Tao
Xiao Geng
Zhang Jianhua
Liu Bo
Professor Liu Mingkang, chairman of the Lingnan Forum, honorary dean of Lingnan(University) College of Sun Yat-sen University, and former Chairman of China Banking Regulatory Committee, made a concluding speech. He pointed out that the reform of institutional mechanisms, especially laws, regulations, and standards throughout the Greater Bay Areashould complement each other, learn from each other, and improve to a higher level, so that our laws could keep pace with the time, our standards could be more transparent, and implementation more consistent. Second, the reform of the tax system. We must make good use of the experience of the Greater Bay Area, given China’s national situations, by reducing taxes, reducing the disparity between the rich and the poor, while encouraging the improvement of finance and consumption. Third, as we had reached a new era, whether it was big data, cloud computing, distributed or block chain, we must first remove the isolation of the data information of various departments in order to maximize the use of high-tech means and make full use of modern information technology to support the our economy. Finally, talents were fundamental. Talents needed to pursue both comprehensiveness and complex, as well as being latent and foreseeing. They should develop the ability to think independently and critically at an early age, and learn how to subvert the original and the existing.
Chairman Liu Mingkang made a concluding speech
Professor of finance,Lu Jun, dean of Lingnan(University) College of Sun Yat-sen Universitygave a closing speech. He thanked the guests for their presence and said that the success of the 8th Lingnan Forum was a tribute to the 30th anniversary of the establishment ofLingnan(University)College of Sun Yat-sen University.
The establishment of Lingnan(University) College was an attempt of China’s higher education reform and opening-up. It had received the efforts and support from the senior generation of Lingnan people led by Mr. Wu Zhande. Lingnan(University) College hadachieved to this daydue to the support of the college’s alumni, leaders at all levels and people from all walks of life. In the past 30 years, Lingnan(University) College hadaccomplished tremendous progress, trained countless talents, and sent a large number of economic management talents to the academic, political, and business circles. It had achieved fruitful results in academic research and had established a wonderful reputation internationally. Lingnan(University)College, the McIntyre School of Businessof the University of Virginia, and the ESADE Business School in Spain teamed up to build a global master ’s program in international business, ranking 11th in QS Globally and 1st in Asia Pacific. Insurance actuarial research ranked 10th in the world and 1st in China. Lingnan College's Master of Finance program ranked 60th in FT globally, and the Business School ranks 7th among mainland universities in China.
In recent years, Sun Yat-sen University had proposed three “facings”: facing the academic frontier, facing major national strategies, and facing national and regional economic and social development. The construction of the Greater Bay Area had been included in the national development strategy. To explore the development of the Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao Greater Bay Area was also the mission of Lingnan(University) College as a well-known economic management school. The Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macao Greater Bay Area had broad prospects. Many guests participated in this year's Lingnan Forum came from afar to discuss the construction of the Greater Bay Area, discussed and offered advice and suggestions on finance, law, technological innovation, and financing and technical aspectsof SMEs. The guests exchanged views and interacted with the audience, and came up with numbers of ideas. I believed that they would play a positive role in the future development of the Greater Bay Area.
Closing Remarks by the Lu Jun
The Lingnan Forum had been successfully held for eight sessions. The Lingnan Forum was the largest and highest-ranking economic and financial forum in South China, and its influence radiated across the country. Focusing on the development of the world economy and emphasizing on the process of China's economic development, the forum invitedlarge numbers of leaders from the political, business and academic circles to gather in Guangdong, the forefront of reform and opening-up, to thoroughly analyze major economic issues at home and abroad such as economic transformation, industrial upgrading, financial reform, and investment opportunities, explored the path of China's economic transformation in the new era and contributed wisdom to the high-quality growth of the Chinese economy.
