World Celebrities Talk About Expo (Twenty-Five)

Stephen Glin, chairman of Hsbc Holdings Ltd group

Stephen Glin.

Chairman of Hsbc Holdings Ltd group (2006), chairman of HSBC limited.

Graduated from University of Oxford, master of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 1982, he joined HSBC, Shanghai, Hongkong, and worked for many years in HSBC. She was praised as "creating a mythical bank clerk".

Ge Lin, HSBC, is one of the largest foreign investment banks in China, and is actively supporting the community and supporting China's education, environmental protection and other undertakings.

He also served as chairman of the British Bankers Association, chairman of the Business Council of the British Prime Minister, member of the British Museum Council and so on.

World Expo, Shanghai, represents the three major trends that are affecting the world: globalization, urbanization and China's re emergence.

Shanghai occupies the central position of the three major processes. Shanghai's hosting of World Expo is indeed worthy of the name.

The theme of World Expo is "Better City, better life", which fits the process of globalization and urbanization.

Nowadays, the growth of the world population is almost concentrated in cities.

Among them, the growth of urban population in Asia, Africa and Latin America is particularly rapid.

By 2030, the urban population of developing countries will account for 80% of the total population of the world's cities.

In Asia and Africa, the pattern of population growth will change the traditional mode of millennial history and turn to urbanization.

The proportion of global urban population has increased from 29% in 1950 to 46% in 2000.

It is estimated that this proportion will increase to 70% by 2050.

By then, the global urban population will reach 6 billion.

At present, more than half of the world's population live in cities.

Therefore, the global urbanization process is the most important social, political and cultural product of globalization.

We must make use of the best technology and municipal engineering knowledge to build a sustainable future in a rapidly urbanized world.

World Expo, Shanghai attaches great importance to ecological design, pollution control and green building concepts, and will show the city's sustainable lifestyle that we all expect.

World Expo's national pavilion will showcase innovative ways to save energy, save water and save resources, helping us to live in harmony with the earth.

Global climate change makes this demand particularly urgent.

HSBC believes that climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the world in twenty-first Century.

Shanghai is the birthplace of HSBC, and we focus on sustainable development in the global and Shanghai business development.

HSBC China is one of the most active supporters of the Shanghai government's urban environmental construction. It has sponsored a series of greening actions in Shanghai's Greening Bureau. It has adopted the 20 thousand square meters of Yan Fu green land in the center of Shanghai and the 10 thousand square meter wetland in the Forest Park of Taiwan.

As the largest natural wetland park in Shanghai, the artillery Taiwan covers an area of 50 hectares, and is the habitat of many aquatic plants, waterfowl and migratory birds.

In addition, HSBC's new China headquarters building is striving for the certification of LEED, the highest international standard of energy and environment design, to ensure sustainable development in water saving and energy efficiency.

We hope this new HHQ building, located in the hinterland of the Shanghai international financial center, is a model for environmental protection office buildings.

The other two trends of World Expo in Shanghai are globalization and the rise of China.

China's rise as a major power is the most important economic event in the first half of this century.

Many people call it China's "rise". In fact, it should be "resurgence". Until fifteenth Century, China's per capita income still ranks first in the world, and it is the most developed country in the world.

Shanghai World Expo represents China's grand return to the world stage.

Over the past 30 years since reform and opening up, the average annual growth rate of China's GDP has been maintained at around 10%.

Today, China is the world's fastest growing economy.

Some experts predict that China will probably become the world's largest economy in 20 years.

However, what is most commendable is that according to the World Bank statistics, between 1980 and 2005, about 500 million people in China were lifted out of poverty. This is an unprecedented achievement.

In such a growth process, Shanghai may be the biggest city in China.

In the past 30 years, the total volume of Shanghai's economy has increased by more than 50 times. GDP has surged from 27 billion 280 million yuan in 1978 to 13690 billion yuan at the end of 2008.

The market value of the Shanghai stock exchange increased from 2 trillion and 100 billion yuan in 2000 to 9 trillion and 720 billion yuan at the end of 2008, becoming the second largest stock exchange in Asia after Japan.

In addition, we have witnessed tremendous changes in Pudong.

In the 90s of last century, the landscape of Pudong was just a field of farmland and low buildings. Today, skyscrapers in Pudong are more than Manhattan, and Lujiazui's financial center will be better than the Canary Wharf in London in terms of scale and momentum.

In the event of Shanghai's Expo, HSBC China will launch its new headquarters in Shanghai international financial center (IFC), which also highlights HSBC's confidence in Shanghai's future development and its long-term commitment to China.

I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the people and leaders of Shanghai. I wish this historic global event a complete success and thank Shanghai for opening its doors to the world and opening our hearts to it.

I firmly believe that Shanghai World Expo will be a great success in 2010.

This World Expo will not only set the tone for the future World Expo, but also lay a solid foundation for the common future of human sustainable development.