The 29th CESA Annual Conference held in Perth by the University of Western Australia
The 2017 Conference of the Chinese Economics Society Australia (CESA) was held at the University of Western Australia, Perth, from July 12 to 14. The theme of the conference is “China’s ‘New Normal’ Growth: Opportunities and Challenges”. The conference featured 4 sessions of keynote speeches and 35 sessions of paper presentations. More than 160 economists and policy makers from the United States, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and mainland China as well as other countries converged to discuss Chinese economic issues and frontiers of economic theories and research. The conference started with opening remarks delivered by Prof. Wu Yanrui, convener of the conference, and Dr. Shi Xunpeng, president of the CESA.
The two-day conference featured world-renowned scholars and experts who delivered plenary reports and shared their insights with participants. They are Prof. Yao Yang and Prof. Zhang Xiaobo from National School of Development, Peking University, Prof. Wing Thye Woo from University of California, Prof. Dora Marinova from Curtin University, Dr. Jesus Felipe from Asian Development Bank and Prof. Zhang Zhongxiang from Tianjin University. More than 100 original and unpublished research papers were selected for presentation and discussion at the concurrent sessions. Those papers not only covered the mainstream economics, but also explored some new areas, such as energy economics, spatial-political economy and the “sharing economy.” The 2017 CESA conference served as a good opportunity for international scholars as well as experts and practitioners to come together to share their views on the major problems and challenges facing China’s and the world’s economies.
CESA as an international academic organization was founded by Chinese scholars in Australia in 1987. This year sees the thirtieth anniversary of CESA. CESA’s influence has now extended beyond Australia to China and the rest of Asia-Pacific region. It holds conferences in Australia each year and the annual conference next year is expected to be held in Sydney. (FU Dahai)