Professor Xi part of expert panel on SIP development

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Executive President Professor Youmin Xi was one of 18 experts invited by Suzhou Industrial Park to contribute to the area’s policy development on opening-up and innovation.

He attended an advisory meeting at which experts from economic, technological, social, and cultural fields from China and abroad contributed to discussions on pilot reforms in SIP, based on state-level guiding policies.

In September 2015, China’s State Council granted SIP approval to become the country’s first open experimental zone to pilot initiatives on opening up and innovation. These include the rapid development of an export-oriented economy in the region, through the implementation of systematic, holistic and coordinated reforms and the establishment of a new model of innovation-driven development.

SIP hopes to build demonstration platforms for opening up and cooperation, as well as enhance industrial optimisation and upgrading.

The advisory meeting was intended to allow all-round analysis and to proactively identify any problems with the pilot initiatives as well as to gather opinions and proposals about the realisation of SIP’s goals.

Xiuhong Ma, former Vice-Minister of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, said she hoped that SIP would take into consideration the experts’ opinions and suggestions, to ensure that the open experimental zone can better lead the national development zone’s transformation, and upgrading and innovative development.

“The open experimental zone is not only related to Suzhou and Jiangsu Province, but is also an exploration that China has made to seek its next step in development. The advice and suggestions of the experts who have gathered at this meeting are highly relevant, creative and possible,” she said.

At the meeting, Professor Xi suggested setting up a think tank that was independent of government and that could make a stable, long-term contribution to Suzhou and Jiangsu Province’s development, as well as to the lives of the people who live there.

“Experiments on opening-up and innovation should not be limited to economic and management system reform, and not only focus on SIP, but be extended to construct an upgraded version of society that has government reform, norms of social governance and a beautiful ecological environment,” he said.