New think tank to advise city matters
- Source: Global Times
- [09:21 July 21 2010]
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By Zhou Mi and Tang Zhao
The Shanghai government is to establish a new center for think tank exchanges made up of a panel of international economics experts by the fall, to advise the city on economic decisions, an official said Tuesday.
The official, who asked not to be named, is from the Development Research Center of Shanghai Municipal Government, which is responsible for setting up the center. He told the Global Times that an official announcement regarding the center is due to be released at the end of the month.
"An organization called Shanghai Center for International Think Tank Exchanges will be set up as the first move to build up a relatively fixed consulting team for the city's officials when drafting economic policies," he said.
The inaugural order of the organization will be to hold its first annual meeting, which will be known as the Shanghai Intelligence Forum.
Though members are still being selected, potential company participants include Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, Nomura Research Institute and Capgemini, all of which sent delegates to a preparatory meeting early last month.
The idea of the organization is inspired by the establishment of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a think tank made up of international experts for the central government in Beijing in March 2009.
The official said that a similar name, "Shanghai Center for International Economic Exchanges," was considered for the Shanghai think tank. However, Shanghai Center for International Think Tank Exchanges was chosen to differentiate the organization from its Beijing counterpart. In contrast to the Beijing think tank, the Shanghai think tank will not charge its members a fee.
"The value of this platform is to maintain a relatively fixed team of international experts," Zhang Xiaoyi, deputy dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, told the Global Times Tuesday. "However, the actual effect the center will have will depend on the form of cooperation it has with the government."
City think tanks of a similar nature began with former Shanghai mayor Zhu Rongji, who started the International Business Leaders Advisory Council in 1989.
There are currently 428 think tanks on the Chinese mainland, of which the Shanghai Institute for International Studies ranks 34th among non- US think tanks worldwide, according to an annual report released by the University of Pennsylvania in January.
