On the afternoon of November 20, 2015, Prof. Christina Liu, managing director of Bellwether International Group, visited South China University of Science and Technology of China (SUSTC) for the 44th session of “SUSTC Lecture”. She gave a lecture on Opportunities and Challenges under the New Trend in 2016 at the lecture hall of the library. He Jia, a professor at the Department of Financial Mathematics and Financial Engineering, SUSTC, presided over the lecture.

Prof. Christina Liu

Prof. Christina Liu graduated from National Taiwan University, served as “Taiwanese minister of finance”, acts as managing director of Bellwether International Group, and works concurrently as a professor at many universities and colleges in Taiwan and the Chinese mainland.

Lecture scene

Starting with the policy background of “global QE entry, exit and intensification”, Prof. Liu explained complex and obscure terms in a simple way. She compared America’s “QE” policy to “a dose of anesthetic”, considering it as”an abnormal practice in the hard times”: it has produced significant effects despite some negative economic impact later, and the USA showed obvious signs of recovery from 2008 to 2015.

Subsequently, Prof. Liu showed the students future challenges in the aspects of “emerging markets” and “concerns over debts”: in the context that the USA prepared to raise interest rates and the rest of the world (eurozone, China, Australia, Japan, etc.) have cut interest rates, emerging markets will fluctuate in the short term and their debts have soared after QE.

Prof. Liu noted that the percentage of China’s foreign trade in global foreign trade is rising with each passing day, and the RMB is trying to be included in the SDR (Special Drawing Rights) basket, meaning that the internationalization of the RMB will reach a new level. Besides, the capital market has fluctuated drastically. In the new situation, China has formed a new structure of driving economic growth through urbanization and domestic demand, and gained the new status in the world.

At the end of this lecture, Prof. Liu explained the “development trend of One Belt and One Road”. She marked the countries and regions along “One Belt” (Silk Road Economic Belt” and “One Road” (21st Century Maritime Silk Road) on the world map, considering that “these emerging markets and developing countries have strong economic vitality and huge development space”, and clarified the view that “the poor will dominate the future economy.” “With a lot of experience in ‘globalization’, Taiwan can work with the Chinese mainland towards the goal of ‘One Belt, One Road’,” she added.

Prof. Liu’s remarks aroused bursts of applause. In the Q & A session, the students raised questions actively, taking on a warm atmosphere.