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.
China’s green revolution
Article in NZ Herald – 2 June 09 – exploring some opportunities arising as a result of the future challenges in the sustainability space.
China’s upcoming ‘Green Revolution’ has been tipped as a hot opportunity for New Zealand companies to promote their technologies in the sustainability space.
McKinsey’s China head Andrew Grant says the situation facing China as the growth in greenhouse gas emissions accelerates is “slightly terrifying” but presents plenty of opportunities.
“Today, China and the US roughly emit about seven gigatonnes of CO2 each year,” Grant said. “If you assume the current technology and GDP growth rate continues, in 2030 China ends up emitting 23 gigatonnes of CO2 each year.”
To arrest the growth in emissions China needs to switch from its dependence on coal to fuel the electricity plants that power its factories, and, shift to more renewable energy.
Tags: china, green, new zealand herald, sustainability, sustainable development
NZ Herald on the Forum
Tuesday Mar 31, 2009
By Anne Gibson
China’s answer to Donald Trump says New Zealand has a global reputation for building environmentally friendly houses.
Wang Shi is an ex-People’s Liberation Army soldier who now leads China’s country’s biggest house builder, China Vanke.
He was in Auckland yesterday to find out more about eco-friendly residential construction.
“New Zealand has developed excellent ‘green’ houses,” he said.” People know Europe, particularly Norway and Sweden, for environmentally sustainable buildings. But that’s so remote for China. We can learn something from New Zealand which is so much closer.”
Tags: china, export, international sustainable cities forum, investment, new zealand, new zealand herald, property, sustainable development, vanke, wang shi
AmCham-China warns U.S. firms against losing opportunities
This warning to US firms to not miss out on opportunities in the current crisis also applies to New Zealand firms doing business or intending to do business in China.
TIANJIN, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) — The head of the American Chamber of Commerce in China Tuesday warned that companies that held back from the Chinese market because of the global economic crisis will lose valuable development opportunities.
And chairman John Watkins called on the Chinese government to provide more “transparent” information about its 4-trillion-yuan (585 billion U.S. dollars) national stimulus package so that U.S. companies could compete fairly with their Chinese counterparts.
“We are quite clear that whoever retreats now will lose development opportunities in China,” said Watkins, also chairman and CEO of Cummins (China) Investment Co. Ltd., in fluent Chinese.
“Most of our members are confident about the Chinese market in 2009,” Watkins told Xinhua.
U.S. companies in China were less affected by the global economic crisis than those back in the United States. Many multinationals, including Cummins, expected to expand in China this year, he said.
“I hope our exports to China could reach 1 trillion U.S. dollars in 30 years and the investment of Chinese companies in the U.S. then could also reach that amount,” he said.
Tags: amcham, china, investment, new zealand, recession, stock market, sustainable development, united states, venture capital
Why are the Chinese interested in New Zealand?
New Zealand is renowned in China, and the rest of the world, for being clean and green. The Chinese recognise that there are opportunities to learn from New Zealand’s approach to sustainable development. There is increasing awareness in China of New Zealand’s expertise in sustainable development, eco-friendly building design, earthquake proofing and cutting-edge urban planning. The need for such expertise is increasingly urgent. Until a quarter century ago, private residential property did not exist in China. In 2007, China added 5.5 million new housing units, four times what the United States built and more than one-quarter of all new housing stock in the world. Rapid urbanisation and development at breakneck speed has necessitated the exploration of more sustainable development strategies.
There is also a degree of fondness with New Zealand. The signing of the China-NZ FTA in April 2008 represents “the fourth first” in a series of milestone agreements between New Zealand and China in the trade and economic area. Many Chinese businesspeople acknowledge the depth of the relationship between the 2 countries. The other “firsts” in the relationship:
• New Zealand was the first Western country to conclude a bilateral agreement with China on its accession to the World Trade Organisation, in August 1997.
• New Zealand was the first developed economy to recognise China’s status as a market economy in April 2004.
• New Zealand was the first developed country to enter into FTA negotiations with China, announced in November 2004.
After years of accumulating substantial trade surpluses with her trading partners, China has foreign reserves of around US$2 trillion today. In spite of recent turmoil in financial markets and subsequent economic recession, many Chinese investors continue to pursue investment and development opportunities. Warren Buffett’s simple philosophy, be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful; is well understood by more sophisticated Chinese investors.
Tags: auckland, china, foreign reserves, free trade agreement, international sustainable cities forum, investment, new zealand, sustainable development
China’s ‘Godfather’ jetting here to talk property
The New Zealand Herald featured the International Sustainable Cities Forum in this article published on Tuesday 17 Feb.
The “Godfather” of the Chinese real estate industry is among a number of leading Chinese and Hong Kong business people attending a conference next month in Auckland which is one of a couple of initiatives underway to develop New Zealand’s business ties with China.
Among the 60 Chinese business people and officials attending the International Sustainable Cities Forum, is Wang Shi, chairman of Shenzhen-listed Vanke – China’s largest residential property developer with a market capitalisation of about US$10 billion.
Aside from his “Godfather” status, Wang has also been likened by Time magazine to US property magnate Donald Trump while the New York Times has called him a “tycoon adventurer in the mould of Sir Richard Branson”.
Tags: auckland, international sustainable cities forum, investment, new zealand herald, sustainable development, 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.