Themed in “One Country, Two Systems: Impacts after the Financial Crisis, a dialogue in China’s Emerging and Mature Financial Centers and Markets”, the School hosted the GIC Financial Summit on January 11.

The summit was sponsored by the Global Interdependence Center (GIC), and was the first of its kind that has been organized in Mainland China. It also marks the unveiling of GIC’s 2010-2011 International Conference Series.

Financial experts and economists from across the world were invited to join the meeting and had thrown a series of hectic discussions on the “Financial Interdependence in the World’s Post-crisis Capital Markets” in forms of keynote speeches and Central Bankers’ Discussion, among others.

　School Dean Professor Xiongwen Lu

In the morning session, School Dean Professor Xiongwen Lu delivered a welcome speech to all participants from both home and abroad, and pointed out that it was just the right time for global financial professionals and scholars to jointly reflect on the global financial crisis and explore new chances and challenges.

Mr. Bin Hu, CEO of BNY Mellon Western Fund Management Company

The first part of forum was themed in “Investments”. Several guests represented by Bin Hu, CEO of BNY Mellon Western Fund Management Company, and Yujun Zhang, CEO of Shanghai Stock Exchange, discussed around the topic of how to make an investment in a sophisticated capital market in the late stage of the financial crisis.

According to Mr. Hu, liquidity is the most important force which drives forward the development of Chinese stock market, in addition to two other factors of valuation and market sentiment.

And Mr. Zhang added that, bond market is a key area of development for this year, and special efforts should be allocated to enlarge the market scale and improve the structure of products in the market.

Mr. James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank

Another highlight of the first part was the Central Bankers’ Discussion. Mr. James Bullard, who is president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, together with several other VIPs from the Bank of Japan and the Bank of Zambia, has made their keynote speeches.

In particular, the speech made by Mr. Bullard, who is also director of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, is always seen as an important indicator of Asia’s foreign exchange market. As he said, the US economy was recovering and that momentum was getting significantly stronger in the 4th quarter of 2009. He added that he believes the US economy is to keep growing positively in the year of 2010. He attributed such recovery to the relief of strain in household consumption in the US.

Mr. Bullard has the voting right on the 2010 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and he is one of the five presidents who have a say in monetary policies among the presidents of 12 regional federal reserve banks of the Federal Reserve System.

Mr. Dave Hale, founder of Hale Advisors LLC

Mr. Francis Chimpimo, who is chief economist of the Bank of Zambia, said that, despite the impact of global financial crisis, the relationship between China and Africa is growing rapidly. The amount of investment made by China in Zambia since 2000 has recently reached US$1 billion, which has played a significant role in the economic development of Zambia. He also suggested that Africa should take measures to shun inflation and unsustainable monetary policy.

The opening session of second part of the forum in the afternoon was themed in “International Currencies Outlook”. Mr. Dave Hale, who is founder of Hale Advisors LLC, and Ms. Kathleen Stephansen, who is managing director and chief economist of Aladdin Capital Holdings LLC, built up hypothesis boldly about the future of the Yuan, euro and yen respectively.

According to Mr. Hale, RMB is deemed to turn into the most important player within the regional currency system by 2015. But he added that the domestic financial system of China still raises a comparatively high barrier in terms of currency supervision.

Ms. Stephansen predicted that, along with fading out of financial crisis, it is inevitable that the global currency system is going to go through some periodical and structural adjustments. She believed that, the post-crisis period will feature the appreciation of RMB, especially against the US dollars.

The last part of summit was focused on the topic of “US Labor Market and China Employment: Independencies at Work”. John Silvia, who is chief economist of Wachovia/Wells Fargo, and Fudan University Professor Zhigang Yuan delivered their keynote speeches respectively and made comparative analysis of the US labor market and the China employment. Meanwhile, they also foresaw the prospect of promoting employment cooperation between the two countries.

January 12, 2010

Overview of Global Interdependence Center (GIC):

The Global Interdependence Center (GIC) is a nonprofit organization with global outreach whose mission is to encourage the expansion of global dialogue and free trade. GIC engages experts to identify emerging economic, social and political issues vital to the interdependent global community, and organizes country and region-specific forums, conferences and seminars. Its partners include the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, Bank of France, Bank of Zambia, Bank of Estonia, The Central Bank of Chile as well as many world-renowned universities and business schools.