Post Date: June 10, 2004
From June 11 to 13, leaders of the financial systems of the United States and China will gather in Beijing to discuss issues affecting the financial relationship between the two countries. The occasion is the inaugural Symposium on Building the Financial System of the 21st Century: An Agenda for China and the United States, organized by the Harvard Law School Program on International Financial Systems and the China Development Research Foundation.
“The discussions will cover important bilateral financial issues, such as the role of the financial systems of China and the U.S. in the development of their economies. We will also look at the approach of the financial systems of China and the U.S. to fostering corporate governance and serving multiple constituencies,” said Professor Hal S. Scott, director of the Program on International Financial Systems. “To conclude, the symposium will address how the financial issues between China and the U.S. affect the flow of investment and trade.”
“China’s rapidly developing economy requires the government to accelerate the financial reforms and build financial institutions for stable and sustainable growth. China is learning from models around the world. While the US is a more developed economy, it is also reexamining and improving its financial system to follow the fast changing economic environment,” said Lu Mai, secretary general of the China Development Research Foundation. “The two countries have much to learn from each other.”
The symposium will involve over 100 invited guests, about half from China and half from the United States. These participants–composed of senior government officials, politicians and their advisers, financial firm leaders, lawyers and consultants, scholars and a few media representatives–will engage in intensive discussions of the financial challenges facing the two nations.
Lou Jiwei, executive vice minister of the Ministry of Finance, and Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of The People’s Bank of China will deliver keynote addresses along with Ambassador Paul Speltz, emissary of the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to the People’s Republic of China.
The Harvard Law School Program on International Financial Systems was founded in 1986. It was established to conduct research linking law, economics and finance. For eighteen years, the program has published books, held symposia and provided policy advice to a variety of countries.