Annual Conference and General Meeting, Hamburg, Germany, 11 - 14 August 2005
The Fourth Annual Conference and General Meeting took place from 11 - 14 August 2005 in Hamburg, Germany.
The "Free and Hanseatic City” of Hamburg is Germany’s second-largest metropolis with one of Europe’s biggest ports. Elegant and cosmopolitan, Hamburg is now a city of palatial office buildings, magnificent promenades, international musicals, extravagant shopping malls – and the famous Reeperbahn and St. Pauli. The magical aura of faraway places is still alive in the old warehouse quarter and the little canals. Hamburg is also Germany’s greenest city, with many spacious lawns and lovely parks. You can easily reach Hamburg via its airport from Asia and Europe. We will also be offering a post-AGM trip to Berlin to give you a chance to explore the German capital.
During the conference we will spend on day on a thematic programme as described below. The other days will be – as usual – a mixture of reviewing and planning existing and new projects of ASEFUAN and the work of the committees, electing a new Executive Committee for ASEFUAN as well as a cultural and tourist programme with the possibility for all of us to enjoy time together.
We will co-organise the conference in co-operation with the The Institute of Asian Affairs (IFA) (http://www.duei.de/ifa/) and the Asia-Africa Institute of the University of Hamburg (http://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/). The IFA was founded by the German Federal Parliament and the German Foreign Office to carry out research and to follow continuously the political, economic and social developments in the countries of Asia.
The theme for the Annual Conference is Global Production Sharing: Challenges and Opportunities for Asia and Europe.
An increasing number of countries of Asia and East Europe are integrating in the international economy and former developing countries take up increasingly important roles in the global economy. Technological and organisational developments furthermore decrease the costs of international production sharing. Thus international corporations gain power to choose the location of their production sites.
With the process of deepening integration the countries of Asia and Europe are becoming more and more interdependent economically. There is potential for the mutual dvelopment of economic growth as poverty levels decrease in many countries and products become available at competitive prices. At the same time, in a significant part of the press and the public opinion, scepticism concerning these processes prevails: To attract international firms in a global competition of nations and to ensure low unemployment rates, the only solution seems to be to yield to the pressure by decreasing salaries, taxes as well as environmental and labour standards.
At the Annual Conference 2005 we will discuss these developments under sub-topics related to the following dimensions:
- Economic Dimension
How are the locations of production for both goods and services being displaced?
How are trade flows between countries in Asia and Europe changing?
What are the opportunities and challenges faced by industrialised and developing countries? - Political Dimension
To what extent can national governments influence political decision-making at the supranational level, for instance in the context of the European Union?
What possibilities do countries not involved in supranational political institutions like the European Union have to influence the impact of international economics on their countries? - Social Dimension
How are societies influenced and changed by economic integration?
Which role can and should NGOs play to contribute to social development and well-being? - Business Dimension
Which success factors and challenges exist for European Companies in Asia and for Asian Companies in Europe?
How well are companies doing with corporate social responsibility and which challenges results out of different cultures & higher complexity?
After an opening plenary discussion with high level speakers offering academic, political, social and business perspectives on our theme, we will split up into workshops according to the above dimensions. During the workshops we would encourage members of ASEFUAN who are doing research on a related theme to present a short paper (10 minutes) as a lead-in for the discussion. The results of the workshop discussions will be presented to the plenary at the end of the day.
A copy of the final programme is available for download.
The Conference is supported by
