Summer Davos Forum 2014, will be held in Tianjin from Sept 10 to 12. Many scholars from both home and abroad ran a brainstorming session in Tianjin on March 20, discussing ideas to make China's voice heard by the world via this international platform.

Ren Xuefeng, deputy mayor of Tianjin Municipality, addresses the brainstorming session of the 2014 Summer Davos Forum, which was held in Tianjin on March 20.[Photo by Yang Qiuyu]

Ren Xuefeng, deputy mayor of Tianjin Municipality, addresses brainstorming session.

"Hosting the Summer Davos in recent years has enhanced the city profile of Tianjin, internationalized its organizations, and accelerated its economic development," said Ren.

He suggests the topics should cover reform, foreign trade, industrial structure adjustment, industrialization, and agricultural modernization and services.

Sheng Bin, the principle member of the 2014 Summer Davos Forum’s topic team and Dean of the APEC Study Center of Nankai University, said that the theme of the forum this year is to create value through promoting innovation. Innovation has become an issue all nations are considering since the start of the international financial crisis, while value is a subject which needs further study.

What we are familiar with is the value of tangible assets. Value connotations, however, are still evolving and the value of intangible assets, such as intellectual property, should be given greater importance with the pace of the times.

"In 2013, China's overseas investment reached 3rd place globally. We have changed our pattern from passively absorbing foreign capital to investing in other countries, thus creating our own value chain,” said Sheng Bin.

“This Summer Davos Forum will help the 'new champions' among Chinese enterprises,further explore new trends in a changing world, unearth new sources of innovation and find new approaches to realizing the transition from an extensive pattern to an intensive one in terms of economic growth and from ‘made in China’ to ‘created in China’,” he added.

Davos Forum, also called the World Economic Forum, evolved from the European Management Forum It is an unofficial international organization which studies and discusses the problems in the world’s economy and facilitates international economic cooperation and exchanges.

It is usually convened in Davos, Switzerland, at the beginning of each year, so it was given the name of Davos Forum or Winter Davos Forum. Summer Davos Forum, also called the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, has been convened in Dalian and Tianjin, China in turn since 2007.

Lee Howell, Executive Director of Davos Forum, said that the Summer Davos Forum focuses more on the development of emerging economies than the Winter Davos Forum, so the topics are designed to cover such areas as innovation, sustainable development, value chain and entrepreneurship.

"Davos Forum builds a bridge between China and the world. The champions in their different fields can learn about changes in innovation," said David Aikman, Executive Director of Davos Forum and the head of the new champions community in an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency.

Edited by Wang Yifei and Brian Anthony Salter