Category: personal_noteS

History

CIIE 2018 is actually the first of its kind so itself doesn’t have a rich “history” to tell. But there are two other exhibits in China worth noting – 1.  Canton Fair (广交会) in Guangdong & 2. Expo 2010 (2010 世博会) in Shanghai

Canton Fair was first held in 1957 Spring and has two sessions (spring session & autumn session) a year (62 years and 124 sessions so far) . Its official name was Chinese Export Commodities Fair, which highlights its origin and main function – exports. Its name was changed after the 100th session and has been China Import and Export Fair since then.

World Expo (or World’s fair, International Exposition, etc.), held every 5 years, is more of a showcase than an purposeful event. China won the bid to host Expo 2010 in 2002, one year after it won the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in 2001. CIIE is held in Shanghai.

What did Xi Say

I watched live keynote and took the following notes –

Part I – welcome & intro

• President Xi welcomed the guests, briefly introduced the CIIE and highlighted that CIIE is the “first expo with import theme on a nation’s level”

Part II – importance of a global economy

• President Xi used “irresistible trends” according to history to describe the inevitable future of openness, collaborations and global trades/economy. President Xi mentioned “the better world” several times
• President Xi suggested three points using “every country” as subject
  • be open and open more room for collaboration
  • push for technology & science advancements, as the driver for human’s growth, also highlighting the word “together”
  • be more inclusive and let every country make progress; reduce inequalities globally

Part III – what China did and will do

• China has made significant progress due to reform and opening, and will continue to do so on a greater scale
• China will do the following
  • Increase import proactively: support the consumption upgrade; lower the tariffs; host CIIE annually
  • Lift limits on foreign investments in certain industries: finance & services (opening accordingly), agricultural & mining & manufacturing (deeper openness), telecom & education & healthcare & culture (accelerate); especially in education and healthcare, foreign ownership percentage will increase. In the future 15 years, good imported might exceed $30 trillion, services imported might exceed $10 trillion
  • Make business environment better: a combination of “pre-establishment national treatment” and “negative list” will be used; protection on IP is highlighted; an interesting “torchlight” metaphor also mentioned here – President Xi said every country should improve their business environment.
  • Pilot area on the next level: Hainan is highlighted here
  • Push for multilateral and bilateral collaborations: WTO reform is mentioned here; several regional collaboration framework is mentioned here

Part IV – be confident in China’s growth potential

• President Xi mentioned a few numbers to support the argument that China is making solid progress this year
• President Xi also talked about the difficulties/dilemma which should naturally occur as things always have two sides; but be confident about China’s economy, its resilience, strength and growth

Part V – Shanghai is great and has its unique positions

• President Xi announced three decisions about Shanghai
  • expand free trade pilot zone
  • establish a market for tech/innovation in Shanghai Stock Exchange (科创板), supporting Shanghai’s financial role and tech/innovation center
  • make integrated Yangtze River Delta region a national level strategy

Part VI – closing

Takwaways

Shanghai’s role reinforced.

• The center of import will shift from Guangdong to Shanghai. Export center might still remain in Canton Fair.
• Domestic financial center strengthened; global financial firms (mostly have already had presence in HK and Beijing) should expand and locate in Shanghai (especially for the new board on SSE).
• SSE will be part of the overall push to let tech companies IPO in domestic market (aimed to compete with SZSE, HKEX, Nasdaq); but this kind of effort has been made several times – ChiNext on SZSE, NEEQ (new three board), etc.. really need a series of efforts/reforms to vitalize the market
• Currently major startups/tech companies are in Beijing or Shenzhen;  Shanghai will play a more important role.

On Oct 8, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways. And a summary version for policymakers.

1.5°C was the target to strive for, agreed in 2015 Paris Agreement. (countries agreed to limit warming to below 2°C above preindustrial levels by 2100)

However, we are nowhere close.

Limiting warming to 1.5°C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes.

– Jim Skea of Imperial College London and an IPCC co-author

By “unprecedented changes,” Skea means essentially two things. First, the world needs to start cutting emissions. Instead in 2017, the world’s emissions a new record high. Second, we need to reduce those emissions very quickly. (Quartz)

Many researches have been done to analyze the impacts of a warming of 1.5°C and above.