Peking University HSBC Business School held its 2017 Economic and financial Forum for Excellent University Students Nationwide in July. Such forum is designed to take students into the heart of the China’s most internationalized and renowned business school. Located in the Pearl River Delta, a vibrant economic hub, PHBS provides the ideal setting for studying advances in finance, economics and management, with the MA and full-time MBA programs conducted in English. In addition, PHBS has taken a bold step to open a new campus in the UK this year.

 

This year’s forum attracted more than 160 excellent students from key universities nationwide, including Peking University, Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Renmin University of China . A full schedule of the five-day event featured academic seminars, paper presentations, company visits and group work, so as to inspire students to reach new levels of achievement, make friends nationwide and create lasting memories.

On the registration day, PHBS student volunteers and staff members assembled early and welcomed new students with friendly smiles and firm handshakes. Wearing PKU T-shirts, volunteers were well prepared to answer questions, give advice and offer help. In the evening,  participants attended the welcome ceremony, where PHBS Dean Wen Hai introduced them the history and principle of PHBS.

He pointed out that In addition to strong faculty, the new institute will also have state-of-art facilities at its disposal. For example, PHBS opened its new financial lab in September 2015 to support faculty and student research. The lab includes a live broadcasting system, a cloud server, 59 student computers, data processing software, and other equipment. An LED stock ticker is arranged in the center of the ceiling to provide a real-time data feed from all major stock exchanges.

 

The following days, students participated in several academic sessions featured their new research papers including such topics as international trade, international finance, corporate governance, business management, micro-financial markets, banking, macroeconomic policy, socio-economic issues, and so on. It provided them a rare chance to present their research in English and engage in face-to-face academic discussions with PHBS professors. Many students said that it was a mutual learning process and of great help to their future academic research.

 

Apart from academics, PHBS also organized a roundtable meeting, where PHBS senior students got engaged in discussions with summer forum students, regarding the issues about the school’s curriculum, employment and learning environment.

 

On the fourth day of the forum, PHBS Dean Wen Hai gave students a lecture on "Current China's economic situation and its future reform and development". Professor Hai analyzed the situation of China's economic development with a unique perspective. He pointed out that China was in desperate need of economic restructuring, thus "supply side" reform should be put in place in combination of effective monetary policies and fiscal policies. In this regard, Dean Hai stressed the importance of health care reform and education reform, and then elaborated on how to improve the nationwide medical system and migrant children’s education. 

 

After the lecture, students also visited Shenzhen’s leading enterprises. They first went to the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Youth Innovation and Entrepreneur Hub. As a symbol of the spirit of innovation in Shenzhen, Qianhai area serves as the pilot district for cooperation between mainland China and Hong Kong and innovation in the service industry, financial innovation and other aspects. Participants also visited the U + youth entrepreneurial community and other incubators. Zhihua Li, students from Peking University, said that Shenzhen's entrepreneurial environment was full of vitality and potential, as many policy guidance and strong support had been in place.

Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Youth Innovation and Entrepreneur Hub
 

Subsequently, students were divided into two groups to visit the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and Skyworth respectively. In the Shenzhen Stock Exchange building, the staff there introduced the status of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and its current business type, and led them to visit the listing hall and historical exhibition. Through exhibited pictures, video clips and documents, students experienced its development journey and got a better grasp of China's capital market.

In the Skyworth, students not only had a taste of the history, social responsibility and corporate culture of this well-known international Chinese home appliance giant, but also feel the entrepreneurial atmosphere of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone.

It was followed by a talent show by students, featuring choruses, dance performances, and skits with a number of students from different universities participating. “We have extensively gifted and talented students. The vibrant performances kept me glued to the stage,” commented Xiang Cheng, a MA office staff who was in charge of the forum arrangements.
 

 

At the closing ceremony, Assistant Professor Young Joon Park gave a detailed summary of the two-day academic sessions, while recognizing the outstanding academic ability of the students, also pointed out the shortcomings, from the academic forum topic orientation, literature review writing, Presentation skills and reference paradigm and so on. At the same time, he looks forward to the future in the future to see HSBC HSBC today familiar faces, and as a teacher and students to open academic trip.
 

Professor Young Joon Park delivers the closing remarks

Yu Yang speaks as a student representative

 

Yu Yang, a student from Nanjing University spoke as a participant representative on the closing ceremony. She expressed her gratitude to the faculty, team members and volunteers and shared her five-day memorable experience. Dean Wen Hai, Vice Dean Ting Ren, Professor Young Joon Park presented the Best Team Award, the Best Academic Award and the Best Innovative Spirit Award for the three outstanding groups in the forum.