Limited spaces available. Join us on 30 March 2009 @ Langham Hotel, Auckland City
International Sustainable Cities Forum
Building Sustainable Cities
Bringing together government and corporate leaders from New Zealand and China to explore the challenges and opportunities of building sustainable cities. Held in conjunction with the 1st Anniversary of the signing of the China-NZ FTA.
Ticket sales closed
We are sorry to advise that tickets sales have now closed due to overwhelming interest. Registered attendees are reminded to collect their name tags from 8.30am onwards on Monday, 30 March 2009. Further enquiries regarding doing business with Chinese should be directed to the organisers.
Ticket sales closing soon
Due to overwhelming last-minute response, we only have a few tickets left and will be closing off ticket sales once supplies are exhausted. Should you wish to purchase a ticket, please register online (and make payment via credit card at the same time).
We apologise if you are not able to purchase any more tickets via this website, as that would mean we have reached capacity.
Time Magazine on Wang Shi
Wang Shi will be speaking at the International Sustainable Cities Forum and will be participating in the Q&A session.
Time Magazine’s feature on Wang Shi entitled Changing the Game in China
Who would think that China’s Donald Trump would be an ex-People’s Liberation Army soldier who majored in drainage at the Lanzhou Railroad College? But Wang Shi, who made a spectacular decision in 1984 when he moved to a tiny backwater called Shenzhen, is the country’s most successful real estate mogul. He heeded Deng Xiaoping’s call to explore the virtues of capitalism, starting a trading company that moved everything from copy machines to the odd crate of shellfish. Although private property was still a dirty word in communist China, in 1993 Wang invested in real estate. He had heard of a man named Trump, and he was intrigued. “I didn’t know much about management,” he says. “But I thought, Western companies already did it well, so why not just copy that?”
Today Wang’s real estate company, Vanke, has projects in 20 cities across China. It had revenues last year of more than $930 million. If his firm grows as it has over the past decade, Vanke in another 10 years could become the world’s largest housing provider. Sixty percent of urban Chinese own their homes, up from practically zero when Wang started. And Shenzhen, that sleepy town where Wang, 54, made his base? It’s a booming metropolis of 12 million people–one of dozens of cities that have sprouted across the nation seemingly overnight. “You blink in China, and another building goes up,” says Wang. –By Hannah Beech/ Shanghai, with reporting by Bu Hua/ Shenzhen
Time Magazine, 20 Jun 05
Tags: china, international sustainable cities forum, property, time magazine, vanke, wang shi
New York Times on Wang Shi
Wang Shi is one of the keynote speakers at the International Sustainable Cities Forum.
New York Times featured Wang Shi last year. This is the story:
ON A COLD JANUARY AFTERNOON, several hundred Chinese converged on a bookstore in a Beijing shopping center called the Creative Zone. As U2’s anthem “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” swelled in the background, their eyes were drawn to a video montage of a middle-aged man with a scruffy beard projected onto a wall behind a raised stage. As the music faded, the man himself appeared, dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket, and the audience fell into a reverential hush.
This was Wang Shi. A 58-year-old tycoon-adventurer in the mold of Sir Richard Branson, he had come to promote his second book, in which he retraces the journey of a seventh-century Buddhist monk across China, Central Asia and India. But the standing-room-only audience, most of them migrants and professionals half his age, seemed more interested in being enlightened about the secrets of his financial success than in hearing about his travels.
Wang is the founder and chairman of China Vanke Company, the largest housing developer in China and soon, perhaps, the world. Though virtually unknown in the West, the former People’s Liberation Army soldier has become a hero in his homeland. His story — a poor migrant leaps to the top of China’s most transformative industry — encapsulates not only the rise of his ambitious nation but also the aspirations of China’s growing middle class. As Wang talked to the crowd about building his giant real estate company, the audience leaned forward expectantly. “You have to let go, to make a choice,” he told them. “Find one important thing, concentrate on it and you’ll reach your goal.”
Tags: china, international sustainable cities forum, property, united states, vanke, wang shi
建業：中原走出的地產「巨人」—胡葆森
編者按
3月30日，在紐中自由貿易協定簽訂一週年之際，由本報和中國城市房地產開發商策略聯盟聯合主辦的「可持續發展城市論壇」，將在奧克蘭舉辦。
本次高峰論壇將通過主論壇、中外對話、圓桌會議、互結友好城市討論等形式，由紐中城市市長、兩國房地產企業老總，就花園城市建設與社區發展深入交流，共同關注「可持續發展城市」主題。希望通過論壇的舉辦，促進紐中兩國商業領袖增進交流，優勢互補，創造出更大的商機。
自上期起，本報連續刊發介紹參加「可持續發展城市論壇」的中國「重量級企業」及企業家的文章，以饗讀者。
Tags: chinese herald, international sustainable cities forum, investment
John Key: Review will encourage investment into NZ
Source: NZ Herald 14 March 2009
The Prime Minister is keen to open the door to foreign investors.
In a speech to the Act Party conference today, John Key said a review of the Overseas Investment Act will be announced by Finance Minister Bill English next week.
The review aims to create an overseas investment screening regime that encourages investment into New Zealand while protecting sensitive land, assets and resources.
Tags: investment, john key, new zealand herald, property, recession
New Zealand Institute of Architects – event partner
The International Sustainable Cities Forum is proud to announce the participation of New Zealand Institute of Architects as event partner.
The New Zealand Institute of Architects represents some 90 per cent of all registered Architects in New Zealand. It is a professional body supporting the needs of its members through a range of services and maintaining productive links with the building industry, government and the wider community.
The NZIA has around 3000 members. Approximately seventy five per cent of these are registered Architects working in New Zealand. New Zealand Architects working overseas, Architectural graduates who are not yet registered, Architecture students, technicians and retired Architects make up the balance of members.
Member services fit broadly into the areas of practice promotion and support, and professional development.
The day to day work of the Institute is undertaken by a small management team based in Auckland. A network of eight, informally organised branches throughout the country provides a local focus for members, who use their branch as an avenue for involvement in the Institute’s activities.
Tags: architect, international sustainable cities forum, nzia
China Vanke wins Architectural Record “Best Client” Award
Hiring talented architects, emphasizing innovative design, and delivering quality housing helped China Vanke earn this year’s award as Best Client.
By Frederik Balfour with Alex Pasternack
China Vanke chairman Wang Shi doesn’t fit the stereotype of the wheeling-and-dealing Chinese property developer. Soft spoken, deferential, and exceedingly fit for 57 years old—he has climbed the highest peaks on all seven continents—Wang comes across as a polymath who sprinkles his conversation with references to American psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of human needs,” Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona, and the latest green building technologies. With short, cropped hair and a square jaw that lends him a strong resemblance to film director Zhang Yimou, Wang has appeared in television commercials for companies such as Volkswagen, Ping An Insurance, and Motorola, earning millions of dollars that he has given to charity.
He’s also a favorite among China’s architects, a factor that helped his company earn this year’s Best Client award. “I think we are very lucky to work with them,” says Li Hu, partner at Steven Holl Architects, which designed Vanke’s new headquarters under construction in Shenzhen. When Li and Holl presented their “horizontal skyscraper “design with a single building floating over public space, Wang understood the concept immediately, likening it to an American research station built on stilts that he saw on a visit to the South Pole.
Full article in the April 2008 issue.
Tags: architect, best client, vanke, wang shi
New Zealand Green Building Council – Event partner
The International Sustainable Cities Forum is proud to announce the participation of New Zealand Green Building Council as event partner.
The New Zealand Green Building Council is a not-for-profit, industry organisation dedicated to accelerating the development and adoption of market-based green building practices. The Council achieves these aims through:-
* Setting standards of best practice through the adaptation of the Green Star rating tool
* Education and training for all areas of the building industry value chain
* Providing access to networks, information and resources for our members to actively lead the market
Tags: development, green building, international sustainable cities forum, new zealand, nzgbc, property
NZ Chinese Herald feature on Wang Shi
3月30日，在紐中自由貿易協定簽訂一週年之際，由本報和中國城市房地產開發商策略聯盟聯合主辦的「可持續發展城市論壇」，將在奧克蘭舉辦。
本次高峰論壇將通過主論壇、中外對話、圓桌會議、互結友好城市討論等形式，由紐中城市市長、兩國房地產企業老總，就花園城市建設與社區發展深入交流，共同關注「可持續發展城市」主題。希望通過論壇的舉辦，促進紐中兩國商業領袖增進交流，優勢互補，創造出更大的商機。
從本期起，本報將連續刊發介紹參加「可持續發展城市論壇」的中國「重量級企業」及企業家的文章，以饗讀者。
Tags: auckland, china, chinese herald, international sustainable cities forum, investment, new zealand, vanke, wang shi
International Sustainable Cities Forum 2009 is brought to you by New Zealand Chinese Herald and Euroasia. We also appreciate the support of McConnell Group, Framecad, China Urban Realty Association and The Embassy of the People's Republic of China in New Zealand.