Overview of Global Think Tank Summit

By China Center for International Economic Exchanges / 08-29-2013 / CCIEE

 

The Global Think Tank Summit, initiated and sponsored by China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), has been successfully held twice and is widely recognized both at home and abroad. Future sessions are anticipated enthusiastically. The Global Think Tank Summit has established a platform for the cooperation and communication of think tanks all over the world. This is an unprecedented pioneering undertaking for its function and influence have crossed the national borders and united the global consensus, thus making suggestions to solve global issues and contributing wisdom to promote the balanced development of the global economy.

 

 

The first Global Think Tank Summit was held in Beijing in July 2009. At the time, the global financial crisis was in full swing and the global economy was facing great challenges. It was necessary for all countries to coordinate their macroeconomic policies and probe jointly into the best approaches to handling the crisis. It was the holding of the Global Think Tank Summit that formed a significant consensus and pushed forward the coordination of the policies of all countries. Therefore it played a positive role at that critical moment.

At the end of June 2011, the second Global Think Tank Summit was held in Beijing. At this time, the global economic recovery was performing weakly and many people were confused by the world economic trend. Against the background, the Summit took the theme of “Global Economic Governance: Common Responsibility” and explored the major issues of global economic governance in an open manner, actively promoted the international community to develop a consensus on the major issues, and consolidated and developed achievements in global knowledge sharing.

 

To the holding of the Global Think Tank Summit, the Chinese government had attached great importance and support. In the first Summit, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with the distinguished foreign participants and Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote speech. The summit attracted more than 900 representatives from more than 60 countries and regions and international organizations, including more than 150 foreign dignitaries, former politicians, government officials, diplomats, and representatives of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the World Intellectual Property Organization, 450 Nobel laureates in economics, and well-known domestic and foreign think-tank representatives, experts and scholars, 200 Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs (Fortune-500 enterprises included), and 150 Chinese and foreign media representatives.

 

In the second Global Think Tank Summit, Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang met with some of the distinguished foreign guests present and made a keynote speech at the summit. Dr. Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State, Lord John Prescott, former British Deputy Prime Minister, Grzegorz Kolodko, former Deputy Prime Minister of Poland delivered speeches. Ambassador Sha Zukang, Secretary General of the Sustainable Development Conference of the United Nations and Under Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Nobuo Tanaka, Director of the International Energy Agency, attended the summit and made speeches. In total, more than 800 people, including the well-known Chinese think-tank representatives, experts and scholars from more than 23 countries and regions, diplomats of various countries in China, Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs (Fortune-500 enterprises included) attended the meeting.

 

The open discussion adopted by the second Global Think Tank Summit focused on seven subjects and reached important consensus on the solutions to the challenges and problems confronted jointly by the world.

Editor:Zhang Mengying