Developing economy delegates to discuss sustainable growth, inequality

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Guests and experts from the financial sectors of 16 countries are in Beijing for a week-long program focusing on South-South economic cooperation, with sustainable development and inequality set to be key talking points.

The 2019 South-South Education Program for Economics and Finance – the fourth to be held since 2016 – got underway at Tsinghua University on Monday, with scholars and representatives of financial institutions coming from various countries across Africa, Latin America and Central Asia.

Welcoming participants at an opening ceremony for the program, Cai E'Sheng, the chairman of the Finance Center for South-South Cooperation, said that he was looking forward to “sharing China's experience,” with the Belt and Road Initiative also set to play an important role in boosting cooperation between developing economies.

Arnab Kumar Banerji, a member of the board of the Qatar Financial Centre Authority, said that the participants expected “to learn a lot,” as he called China “a rising star” amid a changing trade landscape for developing economies.

Guangzhou, Guangdong, China /VCG Photo

Banerji said that more than half of trade conducted by developed economies is now with developing economies, meaning there are many new “opportunities for South-South cooperation, which bring us all here.”

Speaking to CGTN, Emmanuel Adu-Sarkodee, Group CEO of Ghana-based CDH Financial Holdings, said he wanted to “learn more about the Belt and Road Initiative,” amid concerns about rising debt levels in certain African countries.

Barnabas Michael Aliyo, assistant commissioner at Uganda's Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development agreed, joking that he was keen to “learn what was in China's magic box,” referring to the country's economic development over the past 40 years, as he said, “basically we just want to learn how they did it.”

Aliyo said that for African economies, “a lack of skills” was one of the major barriers to growth, while adding that the continent would benefit from a lot more cooperation between countries.

Cai, who was formerly vice chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, gave a lecture on China's economic development over the past 40 years and concluded by addressing what he highlighted as the biggest problem facing developing economies – inequality.

China, Cai pointed out, itself faces what the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China called the “principal contradiction,” defined by President Xi Jinping as the difference “between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people's ever-growing needs for a better life.”

Cai E'Sheng, former vice chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission /VCG Photo

For other developing countries, this contradiction or inequality depends on that nations' own development path and characteristics, with Cai saying that countries must find their own solutions to these issues, based on their own needs and requirements.

Beyond splitting developing economies into winners and losers, Cai warned that unequal development spills out into many other areas such as the environment, and can lead to problems between countries, regions and peoples.