The 28th Annual Conference of the Chinese Economics Society Australia (CESA)

 In Search of New Sources of Growth: What China Should Do Next?

 James Cook University, Cairns Campus
Cairns, Australia, 17-19 July 2016

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  Click here for Information for registration and hotel booking

 The Chinese Economics Society Australia (CESA) in conjunction with the College of Business Law and Governance, and the Cairns Institute at James Cook University will jointly organise the CESA’s 28th Annual Conference in Cairns, Australia, 17 -19 July 2016.

In the past three decades, remarkable achievements have been made in China’s development, with economic growth averaged at 9% per annum. Rapid economic growth benefits ordinary Chinese, as can be observed that more and more Chinese travel overseas, for sight-seeing, shopping and even hunting for real estate assets. Coupled with these remarkable achievements are a number of challenges that are exerting an increasingly significant constraint on China’s road ahead, such as environmental pollutions, income inequality, and regional disparities. For example the widely spread smog in China’s major cities is likely to affect people’s health in a negative way. The recent policy shocks, namely the “Olympic Blue” and “APEC Blue”, appear to suggest a cost of 50% economic activities to immediately address this issue.

Faced with such increasingly binding constraints, Chinese economy appears to settle in a lower growth trajectory, a status of so-called “new normal” (新常态). In response, policy makers are searching for new sources of growth, internally through institutional reforms such as the experimentation of free trade zones and externally through a number of initiatives such as the One Belt and One Road initiative and the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Nevertheless, it is not clear how effective these measures will be and to what extent the constraints will affect Chinese economy. Hence, it is very opportune and most appropriate to hold an international conference to review, evaluate and outlook China’s economy into future. Accordingly the conference carries with the title: “In Search of New Sources of Growth: What China Should Do Next?”

The conference will invite selected distinguished scholars and government officials, from China, Australia, and elsewhere, to deliver keynote speeches. A policy forum has also been planned to particularly cater for the business community and public sector to update their knowledge on the Chinese economy and market.

Major topics that will be dealt with at the Conference include, but not limited to:

• Economic growth and sustainability
• Economic/structural reform in China
• Resource demand and supply and long-term strategies
• Environmental issues, climate change and regional development
• Globalisation, including the inward and outbound FDI, and urbanization in China
• Agricultural and rural development, such as food security issues, farm land reform, and the urban-rural relationship
• Tourism industry’s development and outlook
• Poverty and inequality alleviation
• The Belt and Road Initiative: New opportunities and challenges for the development
• Australia-China trade and FDI relations, in particular trade in agricultural goods
• The role of competition in China’s future growth
• Innovation as a new source of growth
• The role of sharing economy
• Demography, ageing, and health issues in China
• Other macro/micro-economic issues in China.

We would like to invite people from any background – industry personnel, government officials, academia, business consultants, and so on, who are interested in China’s economy – to join us at this important international event in Cairns, Australia.

Key Dates:

• March 31: abstracts of papers due (please email submissions in word files to  cesa28conference@gmail.com)
• April 15: Notification of acceptance
• May 1: Conference online registration opens
• June 1: Conference online registration closes
• June 10: Full papers due
• July 15: Pre-conference networking (at own cost)
• July 17: Reception
• July 18 – 19: Presentation
• July 20: Post-conference networking (at own cost)

Keynote Speakers:

• Wing Thye Woo, Professor of Economics, University of California Davis, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Economic Papers.
• Luigi Pistaferri, Professor of Economics, Stanford University, Co-Editor, American Economic Review.
• Hanming Fang, Class of 1965 Term Professor of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Acting Director, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Chinese Economy Working Group, Co-Editor, International Economic Review.

Policy Forum:

• Moderator: Iain Gordon, Professor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Division of Tropical Environment and Societies, James Cook University.
• Steve Kates, Associate Professor, RMIT University.
• Fuqian FANG, Professor of Economics, Renmin University of China, Member of Policy Advisory Experts Group of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, P. R. China.
• Jammie Penm, Chief Commodity Analyst and Assistant Secretary, Agricultural Commodities and Trade Branch in ABARES.
• Chris Legg, Chief Adviser in the Macroeconomic Group, the Treasury, tentatively confirmed.
• Additional speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

Tourism Forum:

• Moderator: TBC
• Philip Pearce, Foundation Professor of Tourism at James Cook University, Australia.
• George Chen, Dr., Manager of Tourism Forecasting, Tourism Research Australia, Austrade.
• Additional speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

Publications:

• Selected quality papers presented in this conference will be invited to publish at a special issue of Singapore Economic Review (SER), subject to the usual review process of SER. SER is a SSCI indexed journal and is ranked B by Australian Business Deans Council. The guest editors are Dr. Sizhong Sun of James Cook University, Professor Yanrui Wu of University of Western Australia and Assistant Professor Laura Wu of Nanyang Technological University.
• Papers on sustainable development in China are invited to publish at a special issue of Sustainability, subject to the journal’s usual review process. Sustainability is a SSCI indexed journal and has an impact factor of 0.942 (2014). The guest editors are Dr. Hongbo Liu, Dr. Sizhong Sun, and Prof Iain Gordon of James Cook University.

Media Partner:

• Sustainability: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/about

Registration Fees:

• Member of CESA: A$300
• Non-member of CESA: A$350
• Students: A$200
• Forum Participants Only:  A$100
• Forum & Dinner Participants:  A$150

Visa, Travel and Accommodation:

Visa, travel, accommodation and online registration information and assistance will be provided in due course.

Participants are encouraged to book your accommodation as soon as you have decided to attend the conference. Accommodation in Cairns is generally very tight and especially so in July due to high demand by tourists.

Generally, one needs to book their accommodation a few months earlier for July occupancy in Cairns. We strongly urge you to make your bookings without any delay. While the conference organisers will do whatever to help, we cannot guarantee you that we can find one for you if you leave it too late.

Hotels
The Conference Hotel is Rydges Tradewinds Cairns. We recommend participants to book their accommodation at Rydges Tradewinds Cairns. Rydges Tradewinds Cairns will provide complimentary transfers to and from the JCU, Cairns campus(the conference venue). The conference dinner will also be held at Rydges Tradewinds Cairns. Participants who book accommodation elsewhere need to organize own transportation to JCU, Cairns campus.

Other Cairns hotel information available at Wotif.

Tourism information:

• Cairns Regional Council website
• Paradise – Tropical North Queensland
• Cairns Tourist Information Centre

Paper Submission and Conference Inquiries:

For submission and any inquiries about the conference, please email: cesa28conference@gmail.com or contact:

Convenor: Sizhong Sun (孙思忠)
College of Business, Law & Governance
Division of Tropical Environments and Societies
James Cook University, QLD 4814
Phone: +61 7 4781 4710
Fax: +61 7 4781 4019
Email: sizhong.sun@jcu.edu.au

Local Organising Committee:

• Dr Hongbo Liu, James Cook University
• Prof Stewart Lockie, James Cook University
• Prof David Low, James Cook University
• Ms Janie Edwards, James Cook University
• Ms Jennifer McHugh, James Cook University
• Prof Philip Pearce, James Cook University
• Prof Natalie Stoeckl, James Cook University
• Dr Sizhong Sun, James Cook University
• Prof Zhangyue Zhou, James Cook University

Rio Tinto-ANU China Update 2015: China’s domestic transformation in a global context

In collaboration with the Rio Tinto–ANU China Partnership, the China Economy Program presents the fifteenth China Update. The annual China Update is Australia’s premier forum for debate, discussion and analysis of the Chinese economy. The 2015 Update explores China’s domestic transformation in a global context, focusing on structural changes and China’s participation in global integration.

The 2015 Update will host a special panel discussion on China’s policy and actions to address climate change.

Speakers include:

• Professor He Jiankun, former Vice President of Tsinghua University, Director-General of the ‘3E’ (Energy, Environment and Economy) Research Institute at Tsinghua
• Dr Zhang Xiliang, Executive Director of the Tsinghua Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy
• Dr Ma Linwei, Associate Professor, Department of Thermal Engineering, Tsinghua University
• Professor Wang Can, School of Environment, Tsinghua University

Plus many more prominent speakers.

Registration is essential; filling early annually – please note this event is capped at 200 participants.

The 2015 China Update will coincide with the launch of China Update Book: China’s Domestic Transformation in a Global Context edited by Ross Garnaut, Ligang Song, Cai Fang and Lauren Johnston. The launch will be held at the University House on Thursday, 9 July, please visit here for more information.

The Chinese Economics Society Australia (CESA) – Hefei University of Technology (HFUT) Joint Conference: The Fourth Wanjiang River Economic Forum

澳大利亚中国经济研究学会-合肥工业大学联合会议
暨第四届皖江经济论坛

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Hefei, Anhui, China, September 17-18, 2015
College of Economics
Hefei University of Technology

“New Sources of Growth and Challenges in China”

About the Conference:
Since the opening and reform in the 1980s, Chinese economy has experienced very rapid growth, with an average GDP growth rate from 1980 to 2013 being as high as close to 10 percent. The fast economic growth appears to benefit ordinary Chinese people. Nowadays we observe more and more Chinese travel overseas for tourism, education, and even hunting for real estate. However such rapid economic growth cannot be taken for granted. The age of growing at a rate higher than 9 percent seems to have passed and will never return. Instead an era of “New Normal (新常态)” appears to set in.

In this age of “New Normal”, policy makers are in search of new sources of growth. Domestically, urbanization was once thought to be a good source of economic growth. Not surprisingly the infrastructure investment needed in the process of urbanization is likely to boost economic growth. Institutionally, the experimentation of free trade zone is blooming in different parts of China. However to what extent this institutional reform can contribute to economic growth is yet to be discovered. Externally, the One Belt and One Road initiative aims at establishing a closer regional economic cooperation among countries involved. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, initiated and led by China, intends to finance the infrastructure projects in the Asia region.

While policy makers search for new sources of growth, Chinese economy is at the same time faced with a number of challenges, such as pollutions of the environment, widening of the income equality, particularly between the rural and urban people, and growing regional economic disparities. Not surprisingly these challenges can derail China’s economic development, if they are not addressed properly. Therefore, in the current context of economic development in China, this conference aims to explore issues related to the sources and challenges of economic development, and their implications for the long run growth.

The conference is jointly organised by the College of Economics of Hefei University of Technology and the Chinese Economics Society Australia (CESA). The College of Economics of Hefei University of Technology will cover the local costs, including the conference registration fee and accommodation (up to three nights).

Topics:

• The organisers invite all papers addressing the following topics:
• Economic/structural reform in China;
• Australia-China trade and FDI relations, in particular trade in agricultural goods;
• Food security issues, including food security in domestic production and international trade;
• Farm land reform in China, in particular Australian experiences on the land ownership;
• Urban-rural relationship, including migration, rural finance, and income disparity between rural-urban people;
• Environmental issues and regional development;
• The Belt and Road Initiative：New opportunities and challenges for the development of Wanjiang River City Belt;
• Other macro-economic issues in China.

Keynote Speakers:

• Ligang Song, Associate Professor and Director, China Economy Program, Australian National University
• Guanghua Wan, Director of Research. Asian Development Bank Institute

Key Dates:

• 31 July 2015: Abstracts of papers due (please email submissions in word files);
• 15 August 2015: Notification of acceptance of conference papers;
• 15 August 2015: Conference registration opens;
• 30 August 2015: Full papers due;
• 15 September 2015: Conference registration closes.

Organizing Committee:
Committee Chair:
Prof Zhu Weidong
Dean
College of Economics
Hefei University of Technology
Tel: 86-551-63831806
Email: zhuwd@hfut.edu.cn

Committee Members:
Zhu Weidong, Liu Feng, Sun Sizhong, Wu Yanrui, Wu Huaqing

Inquiries and Submission of Abstracts:
Please contact:

Prof Liu Qing
College of Economics
Hefei University of Technology
Tel: 86-551-63831807，86-138-5608-1881
Fax: 86-551-63831807
Email:  liuqingdm@sina.com