Chengdu key for China in economic integration

Chengdu, the capital city of China's Sichuan province, "will carry out a very important role in not only assuring that China is increasingly integrated in the global economy, but also in ensuring that the levels of integration within China will remain high and that those people who live in the interior of the country will not be left behind," said the professor before attending a forum there.

Chengdu will host during June 6-8 the Global Fortune Forum, which is an event organized by the American magazine "Fortune." Professor Ghemawat will make keynote speeches on the forum.

He told Xinhua that he will use the forum to explain the short-term responses given by big companies to the economic crisis, while identifying the strategies which are working and those which, "appear not to be working."

The Professor told Xinhua that Asian companies are behaving in a different manner to those in other parts of the word in their response to the current economic situation, given that "in recent years they have reduced their investment in their foreign subsidiaries, while increasing investment in their national subsidiaries.

The Asian companies in the Global Fortune 500 (the ranking of 500 American companies, drawn up by the magazine based on their net income) invested as much money in their respective countries as outside of them, which showed there are "different responses in different regions."

Professor Ghemawat will also talk about the long-term development concerning evolving markets, which he believes will result in an economically multi-polar world.

He believes Western counties should reconsider, "up to what point they want to work with emerging markets o continue concentrating on their traditional markets."

"While for countries such as China, the question is up to what point the country wishes to change" in terms of concentrating emerging markets or continuing with the traditional bases, said the professor, which he believes assures a series of "competitive abilities" and therefore allow the new markets to compete with western markets.

Chengdu has been chosen to host the Global Forune Forum because it represents a symbol of the country's interior development. With a population of over14 million, Chengdu's gross interior product grew by 13 percent in 2012 to a total of 813.89 billion yuan (132 billion U.S. dollars) with around 233 of the 500 multinational corporations included in Fortune Magazine's ranking having a presence there.