WEF Tianjin Partner Cities Roundtable

World Economic Forum (WEF) Tianjin Partner Cities Roundtable was held in Nankai University on June 21. The conference was jointly sponsored by China Center for Urban Development under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), World Economic Forum, the People’s Government of Tianjin Municipality and Nankai University, and organized by Tianjin Construction and Communications Commission and Accenture.

More than 60 experts, scholars and business leaders from both home and abroad attended the conference, including Olivier Schwab, Executive Director of WEF China, Pedro Rodrigues de Almeida, Head of Infrastructure & Urban Development, World Economic Forum, Tong Jiadong, Vice President of Nankai University, Qin Chuan, Chief Economist of Tianjin Planning Bureau, Karen R. Polenske and Adele Naudé Santos, both professors with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Robert Cevero, Professor of City & Regional Planning & Director, University of California Transportation Center, University of California Berkeley, Guo Jiayao, Director of Arup Greater China Area, and Feng Kui, Director of the International Cooperation and Training Department of China Center for Urban Development. Ren Xuefeng, Deputy Mayor of Tianjin, and Li Tie, Director General of China Center for Urban Development of the NDRC, delivered keynote speeches.

Li Tie said, China’s urbanization has developed fast over the past three decades, which was equivalent to the speed of European urbanization in two to three centuries. Therefore, problems of the two to three centuries were concentrated. At the conference, the topics selected by the People’s Government of Tianjin, one of the sponsors, were very close to the hotspot issues facing China’s current urbanization. Attending experts and scholars were expected to put forward precious opinions and offer solutions to the problems encountered by Tianjin in its transformation.

According to Li Tie, urban development shall involve lower cost for the development of service sectors; Urban density shall be improved and disorderly land expansion shall be avoided; Infrastructure monopoly shall be broken and private investment shall be opened; More opportunities shall be offered for the development of diverse services; Financial support shall be provided to small and micro-sized enterprises; Small land plots can be directly sold to service operators through auctions to help them avoid secondary development by real estate developers and lower operating costs.