The Economic Road To Post-Covid-19 Recovery: Fast or Slow?

This webinar featured a discussion with Professor Fan Gang, President of China Development Institute, and Independent Member of the Monetary Policy Committee of China’s Central Bank, interviewed by Professor Michael Mainelli, Executive Chairman, Z/Yen Group. Covid-19 hit China first, and hard. China’s GDP contracted by 6.8% in the first quarter of 2020 and projections for the year are of a significant slow-down from ‘normal’ growth of 6% or more. Covid-19 is hitting Western economies later, and seemingly harder. Western GDP is widely expected to decline. As China leads the way out of covid-19 lockdown and tries to grow again, what can locked-down westerners spend their time usefully thinking and learning about? In this discussion Professor Fan Gang shared his insights as an independent member of the Monetary Policy Committee of China’s Central Bank and President of China Development Institute. He discussed the limits in applying previous experience with SARS to the current pandemic, .the merits of various recovery shapes, “V”, “U”, “W”, “I”, or “L”, and the amount of future resilience society will expect both in supply chains and credit systems. Speaker: Professor Fan Gang is President of China Development Institute (CDI) in Shenzhen, China, Director of National Economic Research Institute (NERI) and Chairman of China Reform Foundation in Beijing, China. He is Professor of Economics at Peking University (PHBS) and at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). He is a guest professor at a number of universities and graduate schools. He served as an independent member of the Monetary Policy Committee of China’s Central Bank from 2006 to 2010, and again since 2015, and is an advisor to various departments of the Chinese central government and provincial governments. He served as an economic consultant to various international organizations and played leading roles in research projects commissioned by the World Bank, ADB, UNDP, OECD, etc. His publications include over 100 academic papers published in Chinese and English academic journals and 12 books on macroeconomics and economics of transition. He received Doctor Honoris Causa degrees from the University of Auvergne (France) and the Royal Roads University (Canada), in 2004 and 2011 respectively, and was listed as one of the “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” jointly by Foreign Policy and Prospect in 2005 and 2008 consecutively, and one of “100 Global Thinkers” by Foreign Policy in 2010. He received his PhD in economics from the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1988. Interested in watching our webinars live, or taking part in the production of our research? Join our community at: https://bit.ly/3sXPpb5