TRODITIES in Public Focus in China
May 25th 2016
Yiwu city’s Party Secretary Mr Sheng Qiuping and deputy mayor Mr. Xiong Tao joined conference attendees for a lunch meeting at the Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College. The meeting was also attended by representatives of both of the project’s partners in China: Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College and the China International Electronic Commerce Centre. Moreover, the meeting benefited from the presence of Professor Wang Jian who is Chair Professor of International Business and e-Business at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) and has been advising the project since its inception in October 2015. Project members in attendance included Dr Diana Ibanez Tirado (University of Sussex), Dr Huaichuan Rui (Royal Holloway College, University of London), and Professor Magnus Marsden (University of Sussex).
Dr Huaichuan Rui welcomed the assembled guests and presided over the ceremony. In his opening, Professor Magnus Marsden outlined the substantive intellectual goals of the project, discussing in particular the significance of long-term fieldwork for understanding Yiwu’s actual trading relations with the world. He also discussed the various ways in which the project could make a substantial contribution to the city of Yiwu, noting for example the potential of further collaborations between educational institutions in Yiwu, and the project’s European partners (University of Sussex, University of Cambridge, Royal Holloway College, University of London, and the University of Copenhagen).
The project’s aims and goals were then warmly welcomed and further articulated by Professor Wang Zhen Hong, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party of Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College and Mr Zhu Xiao Liang, Director of China International Electronic Commerce Centre. In his remarks, Yiwu’s Deputy Mayor, Mr. Xiong Tao mentioned Yiwu’s success in the past but also highlighted the challenges facing Yiwu in the context of the global economic slowdown, and welcomed the positive contribution that the project could make to the city’s future development, especially in the fields of trade and connectivity, and educational and community upgrading.
After lunch, Mr Mingtao Li of the China Electronic Commerce Centre talked about the growing importance of e-commerce to Yiwu’s commercial dynamics and gave suggestions about this side of the city’s dynamic to the project. In the final session of the day Professor Wang Jian presented a comprehensive history of Yiwu’s development as an international trading city, while also offering insights into the growing role of e-commerce for the city, as well as the challenges this poses in terms of regulation and control.
The meeting was attended by Yiwu Municipal People’s government leaders who showed their support to the project. The opening ceremony was reported by the local TV news station and in Yiwu’s newspaper, and was also covered on the websites of partner institutions in Beijing. You can watch the local TV report below (in Chinese).