7th National Development Forum Focuses on China’s Journey Ahead
Dec 22-2022
On December 18, the 7th National Development Forum was successfully held by the NSD and the think-tank affiliated with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). Scholars and experts, including two Nobel Laureates, gave speeches and had discussions on China’s journey ahead, with the aim of offering insights for policy making.
James J. Heckman, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Economics, spoke on spurring China’s social mobility through skills enhancement. His cases and statistics showed that this is particularly important for the children in rural areas and vital for national development strategy. He then had a dialogue with Prof. Justin Yifu Lin, Honorary Dean of the NSD and Dean of both Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development and Institute of New Structural Economics, on a range of topics, including human capital, common prosperity, and China-US relationships.
Prof. Xu Jintao, PKU Bo Ya Distinguished Professor and Director of PKU Environment and Energy Economics Institute, presented a report by a research team of the NSD on a roadmap for implementing the dual carbon strategies. After it reaches peak carbon emissions, China should strive for achieving carbon neutrality while maintaining appropriate economic growth. To do so, it will need to resort to systematic economic policies, such as environmental tax, carbon tax, and carbon trading, in addition to continuing to work on technological advancement, energy structure, and consumption structure.
Keynote speeches and discussions saw the participation of Prof. Yao Yang, Dean of the NSD; Mr. Xia Bin, former counsellor of the Counsellors’ Office of the State Council and Honorary Director of National Economics Foundation; Prof. Huang Yiping, Deputy Dean of the NSD and Director of the Institute of Digital Finance; Prof. Liu Shouying, Dean and Party Chief of the School of Economics of Renmin University. Their topics encompassed China’s economic development potential, domestic demand, financial risks, and key economic areas in 2023 and 2024.
As part of the forum, the 63th Economic Observer focused on outlooks of the macroeconomy. In the closing ceremony, Angus Deaton, winner of 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics, delivered a speech on the impacts of the pandemic, challenges for the US and China, and the world order in the future. He pointed out that the harm to global trade has been mostly caused by the elite group in developed countries who lack the understandings and empathy for the common people. His subsequent dialogue with Prof Zhao Yaohui, NSD’s professor of Economics, touched upon the root causes of some issues in the US, as well as assistance to the unemployed and underprivileged.
The Forum also consisted of five parallel sub-forums which shed light on south-south cooperation and development, management, green finance, energy, and Digital China.
