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.
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
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
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.