The Pacific Rim Forum - A twenty year history

2004 – 2009: China Access 2008

The Pacific Rim Forum designed and delivered the official business legacy program for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.  This initiative, which was launched by Beijing Vice Mayor Lu Hao in December 2004, was designed to better help China fully realise the economic benefits from its staging of the Olympic Games.

Over the four years leading up to the Olympics, the Forum conducted over 20 China-focused business events in key cities of North America, Europe and Australasia, and convened 10 “reciprocal” business visit programs in China for senior international business leaders.  This process resulted in numerous new business investments in China and strategic partnerships between Chinese technology companies and research institutions and their international counterparts.

“Practical insights and key learnings dished out by top-notch professionals. A must for any business executives gearing up to enter China.”

Rashid Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer, Optima Health Solutions Inc., Canada

2003: Special China Roundtable, Beijing

China’s much heralded leadership transition in 2003 provided a particularly appropriate milestone on which to base a conscious review of China’s challenging development and ongoing reform agenda.  Conducted by special arrangement in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, this invitation only roundtable brought together many of the world’s greatest acknowledged China resources.  Key themes included:

• China’s New Post 9/11; Post-Iraq; Post SARS Political Realities – and a Revisited External Game Plan
• Regrouping Your Corporate Strategies: Meeting Your Targets and Key Milestones
• Driving the Market Economy Inside China: Some of the Key Players
• The Growing Information Society

“The best and most focussed discussion of China that I have attended in many a year – and I have attended many.”

Bill Overholt, Asia Policy Chair, Rand Corporation, USA

2002: Asia’s Science-Based Innovation, Life Sciences and Technology Summit, Beijing

“The 21st Century’s growth industries and the 21st Century’s growth economies”. This simple core proposition provided the focus and strategic intent behind the Summit which saw 450 delegates come together in Beijing to discuss the convergence of technologies, and the commercialisation of 21st century science for Asia’s emerging growth industries. A key area of focus was the rapidly growing area of the Life Sciences, an emerging industry which is widely expected to transform Asia’s four largest industries: energy, health, agriculture and new materials.

“I have rarely been to an event where the standard of presentation was so consistently high and where the organisational arrangements were so smooth.”

Francis Gurry, Assistant Director General & Legal Counsel, World Intellectual Property Organisation, Switzerland

2000: Sydney

The 2000 Pacific Rim Forum hosted its 500 senior delegates in Sydney with a conscious alignment to another important regional occasion - the option of attending the concluding three days of the cross-millennium Olympic Games. By then identifying and exploring the key regional issues and trends of significance at end 2000 which were most likely to impact the future planning of corporations operating in the Asia/Pacific region, ten unavoidable issues emerged:

"Without a doubt, the quality of the discussions on a whole range of topical issues will have a significant influence on the decision-makers present."

Christopher Mace, Company Director, C.R. Mace New Zealand

1998: Shanghai

In Shanghai approximately 550 corporate delegates were in attendance for the sixth Pacific Rim Forum held in one of the region's most dynamic - and potentially significant - economies. It was also conducted in the extremely difficult and turbulent regional environment of late 1998. This Forum is widely acknowledged to have had exerted a meaningful influence on many of the global - and regional - policy initiatives which commenced less than one month later from mid-October 1998. The following issues were considered:

• The urgent need for stronger global leadership and co-ordination
• Recognizing the crucial Triangular Relationship
• Globalization: A new emerging post-Asia debate
• The Changing character/nature/imperatives of global capital flows
• What went wrong?
• The importance and regional significance of Japan
• The growing role and regional significance of China
• Building a more responsive global and regional architecture
• The way ahead: Where to from here?
• Building upon the potentially significant APEC cornerstone

"Shanghai was a brilliant success. What panache! That it was held at this time, and in that place were such important statements. On one day alone there was more substance than most conferences generate in years."

Kenneth S. Courtis, Vice Chairman Asia, Goldman Sachs, Japan

1997: Hong Kong

Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty provided almost 750 senior corporate delegates with a truly historic setting against which to consciously pause, reflect and further reassess the very essence of the Forum's implicit concept of an upcoming "Pacific Century". After ten years of record growth rates, which had become the economic envy of the world, Asia had clearly begun to face many of the problems and issues, which were largely an unwelcome manifestation of that success. These very portents provided the background to the Asian financial crisis, which actually began only days later with the collapse of the Thai baht on July 2, 1997. A number of major issues were developed, debated and discussed:

• Is the Asian Bubble Now Bursting? Krugman Redux
• Hong Kong's Handover: The Wider Historic Perspective/Its Implications
• Asian Values: Exploring Differences that Really Make a Difference
• Japan's Anticipated Role in the Pacific Century - Leader or Follower?
• A Changing Geo-strategic Paradigm: The Shifting US and Asia Agendas - Their Implications for APEC's Evolution
• Asia's Cross-century Leadership Issues: Political Leadership; Regional Leadership; Issues Leadership
• Post-Deng China
• Re-designing Regional Headquarters: "Battleships, Silos & Canoes"
• China's Emergence: Its Implications for Global Geo-strategic Stability
• Is Thailand the Next Mexico?

"The Region's premier event in getting all the right people together to discuss the right issues that affect all of us, no matter what our business or enterprise. A truly value-added experience."

Andrew Liveris, Global Vice President, Specialty Chemicals, Dow Chemical Company, USA

1995: Bangkok

Approximately 600 senior corporate delegates were in attendance for the fourth Pacific Rim Forum held in Thailand, one of the region’s most dynamic - and potentially volatile - economies. It was also conducted within three months of yet another important change of government and provided a most appropriate background against which to more deeply consider a number of still rapidly changing regional developments.

• "Is East Asia's Miracle a Myth?" The Paul Krugman Thesis
• The evolving APEC process (post-Osaka)
• China's transition to a 21st Century "Superpower"
• Is Hong Kong dying?
• Asia's "Megacities": The considered implications of city and region-states
• Megatrends Asia: A John Nasibitt perspective
• The 21st Century Asian organisation: The "Agile" corporation
• Asia's post-Cold Way "realpolitik" and the 21st Century
• Preparing for the 21st Century: A current global and regional perspective
• Asia's infrastructure imperative

“The Pacific Rim Forum is by far the key meeting for understanding the dynamics of the Asia Pacific region in order for us to plan the future growth of our businesses in this exciting area. Thought provoking topics, memorable speakers and a high quality audience make for an unbeatable combination."

John J. Feenie, President - Asia Pacific, Walt Disney, Asia Pacific

1994: Beijing

More than 500 delegates were involved in the third Pacific Rim Forum staged in China, which had quickly become recognized as the largest and fastest growing individual market in the world. Indeed this Forum was acknowledged to be the largest of its type to be conducted in the People's Republic of China capital to that point in time. Key issues debated included:

• Forces shaping the "New" Global Agenda
• The new uneven playing field (post-Uruguay Round GATT)
• The growing regional significance/corporate implications of APEC
• What could go wrong?
• The "Clash of Civilizations": The 21st Century's potential cultural divisions
• The looming implications of a global capital shortage
• The changing "Visions" of the Many China's
• China 2000
• Adapting to managing "corporate turbulence" levels in Asia
• Building a regional corporate management "cadre"

"The Pacific Rim Forum could properly be regarded as the Corporate APEC."

Li Peng, Premier of China

1993: Bali

In 1993 the Pacific Rim Forum hosted over 450 delegates in Indonesia - which was at the time acknowledged as one of the most important and rapidly changing markets in Asia. Key issues debated at this regionally focused Forum included:

• The "Third Circle" concept: Better sequencing its strategic implications
• Vision/Strategy/Structure/People and Staffing
• Recognising Asia's increasing and inherent economic sustainability
• Managing the Region as a Region ("from Sapporo to Christchurch")
• Adopting the most appropriate corporate positioning and structure
• Bringing greater functional excellence to strategic alliances and joint ventures
• Recruiting, training and retaining the "right" people
• Developing the "New Asian Manager"
• Creating more effective regional strategies for product innovation and development
• Overcoming the growing infrastructure hurdle

“This has been the finest meeting I have attended anywhere in the world both organisationally and in a substantive sense. I came away enriched with additional information and seeing the contacts established and being established; it's one of the most important events one could go through in their professional life."

Andreas Van Agt, EC Ambassador to the USA and former Prime Minister for Holland

1992: San Diego

More than 400 delegates attended the inaugural Pacific Forum event which was conducted in an environment very much impacted by the formative stages of the proposed APEC initiative. It also coincided with the final stages of The America's Cup for yachting. The ten key issues discussed at this Forum included:

• A new age of geo-economics driving geo-politics
• The growing realities of "managed trade"
• The formal advent of "Three Circles"
• Managing these three "Poles of Reciprocity"
• The emerging options of "open or closed" regionalism
• Gaining leverage in this emerging world of powerful regional groupings
• An absence of conspicuous regional leadership in Asia
• Restructuring the post-Cold War institutions
• The next catalyst
• A Pacific Century borne upon corporate initiatives

“As a sponsor, the opportunity in one place for people to meet and talk about current business affairs and things relating to what's happening in the region was a really worthwhile experience."

Tunku Tan Sri Dato' Seri Ahmad Yahaya, Group Chief Executive Officer, Sime Darby Group