On the evening of October 21, Beijing time, the "Sustainable Financial Development" forum hosted by our university was successfully held. The forum was conducted both online and offline, and Vice President He Ying presided over the forum. Sun Yi, Chief Operating Officer of Everbright Securities Hong Kong, Xiao Benhua, Member of He Ying Studio at Decision Consulting Research Base of Shanghai Municipal People's Government, and Victor Zimba, Finance Director of Zambia Financial Intelligence Center made keynote speeches. Chen Wei, Executive Vice Director of the College of International Education of our university, and 70 participating officials from the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Botswana, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and other 11 countries attended the forum.

Sun Yi focused on "green finance" and comprehensively analyzed green finance policies, Hong Kong’s sustainable development opportunities, an overview of Hong Kong's green finance development, and green financial product investment strategies. He said that with the increasingly severe climate and environmental crisis, green finance programs are of great significance to assist companies in promoting sustainable development. In recent years, green finance has developed rapidly on a global scale. Both governments and companies are paying increasing attention to low-carbon and environmentally friendly benefits. It has driven the development of the green financial market, especially the rapid increase in the issuance of green bonds, which will surely become one of the mainstream trends in future financial development.

With the theme of "Shanghai Practice of Green Finance", Xiao Benhua introduced the main practices of Shanghai's development of green finance in recent years and imagined the grand goals of Shanghai's green finance development during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. He believes that Shanghai will closely follow the main line of serving the "dual carbon" goal, promote and guide social capital to gradually flow from traditional high-energy-consuming and high-polluting industries to low-carbon economic industries, focus on key areas such as transportation, energy, and consumption, and enrich participating main bodies, strengthen product innovation, keep the bottom line of safety, give full play to key advantages, accelerate the introduction and cultivation of a group of professional organizations, accelerate the promotion of the investment and financing functions of the national green fund, and strive to build a world-class green financial center.

Based on Zambia's basic economic conditions and financing methods, Mr. Victor Zimba objectively analyzed the challenges that Zambia faces in the field of green finance. He said that finance is the blood of national development. In recent years, green finance has developed rapidly. He thanked the organizers for their tremendous efforts for this forum. China’s practical development experience is very important to developing countries that are also subject to poverty. For reference, he hopes that developing countries can establish partnerships based on mutual respect to achieve mutual benefit in green financial cooperation.

Vice  Principle He Ying made a concluding speech. She pointed out that the  results of this forum were remarkable, which further clarified the core  concepts of green finance, combed and analyzed in detail the policies of  various countries and regions on green financial products such as  environment, climate, and biodiversity. The forum also shared the  practical experience of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Zambia, and looked  forward to how green finance will develop and how finance would support  the future trend of sustainable development. She hopes that the forum  can be used as a starting point to further expand communication and  exchanges in the field of sustainable financial development between  China and developing countries, and the sustainable global financial  development can thus be ultimately achieved.

The  atmosphere of the forum was active and exchanges were frequent. The  guests also had in-depth communication on specific measures to promote  economic recovery in the post-epidemic era, infrastructure investment,  and how to deal with inflation.

Written by: Guan Rui

Photographed by: Hong Xingzhi

Reviewed by: Chen Wei