Source: Sun Yat-Sen Business School
Author: Liang Qi

On July 2^nd to 3^rd, more than 180 experts and scholars from US, UK, France, Japan, Sweden, Italy, Iran, Hong Kong, and China mainland gathered in Sun Yat-Sen University to attend the International Seminar on Spatial Economics (2011), which was held in China mainland for the first time. The Seminar was jointly launched by Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, Peking University, Nankai University and Nanjing University, and it was co-hosted by SunYat-SenUniversity and two national first-degree societies: China Society of World Economics and the Regional Science Association of China.

98 articles were reported in the 12 sessions of the seminar. With a view of the world and a foothold in China, experts and scholars from home and abroad had comprehensive discussions on many hot-spot issues, like the leading edge of the theories on Spatial Economics, space measurement and statistics, industrial agglomeration and industrial transfer, international trade and economic geography, urbanization and urban system, integrating the theories on Spatial Economics with practical problems. The seminar gave the audience a substantial academic feast with heated atmosphere, dynamic discussions and collision of Chinese and foreign thoughts.

This seminar was the first International Seminar on Spatial Economics in China. Its success reflected SYSU’s full support for interdisciplines and prospective, comprehensive disciplines. The experts present spoke highly of the seminar and praised it as a meeting of high academic standard and profound academic influence. It established our university’s academic status and international influence in Spatial Economics (new Economic Geography) in China.