World Built Environment Forum to be held in Shanghai

The second World Built Environment Forum will be held from March 27 to 28 in Shanghai, according to an announcement made on Feb 21 by the organizer, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

The London-headquartered organization, which has a history of more than 140 years and nearly 130,000 members, held its inaugural forum in April 2016 in Washington DC.

Organizers said that as more than two-thirds of the world's wealth is bound up in land and real estate, the forum is significant in that it can create and manage the built environment that today's and future global populations need by combining knowledge, skills and resources from the best in the industry.

Confirmed speakers for the Shanghai summit include Stephan Deville, project development director of Ikea, Wang Tao, senior director of Asset Management, Alibaba, and Vincent Lo, chairman of Shui On Group, which is most famous for its development of Shanghai's landmark Xintiandi area.

The speakers will be discussing issues such as mass urbanization, the evolving and growing importance of cities and how can cities globally compete for Chinese foreign direct investment in infrastructure and real estate.

The One Belt One Road initiative will also be used as a key point of reference at the summit.

Sean Tompkins, CEO of the RICS, noted that as the world's population continue to grow, the need to plan the world we live in will be an increasingly pressing question that concerns not only architects.