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15:26, 15-May-2018
Beijing to give 'different perspective' as New Economy Forum host
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Beijing will host the New Economy Forum (NEF) in November, a new major conference backed by Bloomberg and the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) which will feature some of the world’s most respected policy makers and economists.
Details concerning the NEF were announced on Tuesday, with media giant and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg joining forces with Henry Kissinger, former US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and CCIEE founder and former Chinese vice premier Zeng Peiyan.
According to the Bloomberg China International Economic Exchange Center, the NEF will offer a platform to discuss the opportunities and challenges in the global transition led by China, India and the new economies in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
The NEF will look to focus on areas such as inequality, climate change and China’s growing role in the global order.
Choosing Beijing as a venue is “critical,” according to Bloomberg Media Group CEO Justin Smith, who told South China Morning Post “in 2018, if you want to have a serious conversation or learn more about the future of the global economy, Beijing would be at the top of that list.”
The board of advisers backing the NEF includes some of the most important global policy makers in recent decades, such as Zhou Xiaochuan, the former governor of the People’s Bank of China, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former UN chief Ban Ki-moon and former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen.
The board of advisers also features former Chinese finance ministers Dong Jianhua and Lou Jiwei. Elder statesman Henry Kissinger has been named an honorary chairman of the NEF.
Talking to the Financial Times, Michael Bloomberg said “this conference is focused on the world and China as an emerging power and how we all work together,” promising to keep the guest list limited to 400 so the NEF can be “a serious thing where we hope to get everybody to contribute.”
The NEF will also look to pull away from other similar financial conferences by offering a different point of view, with Justin Smith telling the Financial Times “leading global forums to date have been designed from a Western perspective. If you think about the future of the global economy and want to assemble key public and private sector leaders, it’s a different community.”
The forum will take place in Beijing from November 6-8.
[Top picture: Michael Bloomberg at the IMF/World Bank spring meeting in Washington, US, April 19, 2018. /VCG Photo.]