Hello, welcome to visit Shanghai Forum
I'm very aware of the importance of highereducation to the modern economy. Higher education promotes the R&D, whichbegins to be crucial to improving economic forms of all of our countries. Andindeed when I was the minister for universities in the British Canada, we introducedan initiative in which we pledged more public funding for R&D on ouruniversity campuses that challenged our universities as they bid for that moneyto bring at least twice as money in private commercial partners as well. Andwithin the first year, they leveraged over 1 billion pounds of new investmentfor R&D research into our campuses, with more than two thirds of that comingfrom commercial companies that wanted to conduct their research in ouruniversities, and not just British. So universities are very important forgrowth.
Universities have another role in tacklinga challenge which is going to be very important in the 21st century for whichwe have not really talked about so far this morning and that is ensuring thatas many people as possible in our societies have the opportunities to benefitfrom the growth that we read. The challenge of tackling inequality, thechallenge of spreading opportunity, of delivering what in China has been calledthe harmonious society. And when we analyze in Britain the crucial drivers ofinequality, one very important factor is quite simply if you went touniversity. If you went to university, you have human capital to benefit fromtechnological advances and the growth of the economy. If you didn't have theopportunity to go to university, your chances of enjoying high living standardsand being able to maintain successful employment during your working lives hassadly much reduced. That's why one of the policies that we introduced in aprevious government was to remove the number of controls limiting the number ofpeople gave to a university, and while I'm so excited by China's initiatives,there are many more young people in China to have that opportunity.
Education, especially higher education,also helps us understand some of the other crucial forces driving the moderneconomy. And one of them is that increasing trade will not simply be inmanufacturers. Trade will be in services, services such as education. Wealready envision in Britain where our second largest export to China iseducation, Chinese students who come to Britain where they're very probable tostudy. And as we look at future growth in China and around the world, we seeall this opportunities that increasing internationalization, education, inhealth, in social care for all people, advice on creating new patient systemsand the testaments that they need in order to generate high living standards forpeople in their retirement. And there is a challenge here for the internationalcommunity. So often, during the second half of the 20th century, the challengewas to remove the barriers to trade in manufacturers. The challenge now is toremove barriers to trade in services so that nations can exchange services andcan benefit from access to the highest equality in services wherever they seethemselves make comfortable. So growth in trade in services is a biginternational growing trend.
There's a second trend that I'd like toreport briefly to this conference, which again has not really been referred toso far today, and this is urbanization: the increasing proportion of ourpopulation living in cities. Britain was the first country to go through thathistoric era when more than half of our population lived in the city. We wentthrough that in the 1850s. The world as a whole has just gone through that era:in 2008, more than half the world's population lived in cities. Making cities functionefficiently will be one of the crucial challenges as rates of population growthin cities continue to increase. And it's very important that we learn lessons aboutfrom the experience of well-managed cities, like Shanghai. We will shareexpertise of how we have managed cities that have grown rapidly. We have in
London one of the very few cities in theWest which is still growing fast; it's about to go through a population of 10million, so we've had about all of the challenges of how to handle a growingpopulation in a big city. Delivering urbanization will also involve investingin infrastructure so that people can come together and all the evidence is thatinnovation thrives in cities where people can cluster together; that's wherethe great ideas of the 21st century need to come from, especially cities whichhave world-class universities in their heart.
For both international trade and services,and for our cities to function, something else very important is needed. Andthat is the right kind of infrastructure. Now again, we focus on physicalinfrastructure which is certainly very important. But there's another sort of infrastructureas well: the intellectual infrastructure that supports and enables physicallystructures function better. And I want to stress in particular the importance ofgetting common standards that enable the high-tech facilities of the moderneconomy to interact with each other. I observed in Shanghai that people think aboutstarting a conference on the internet of things. The internet of things has astrong function and a great potential. And it is very important that we havecommon standards that enable the heating system in our flat, the IT system inour motor car, the IT system controlling our bank account to interact andintercommunicate. For that there are important roles for countries that arestanding at the intellectual forefront of these functions. If we do not agreeto share standards, it will be impossible for our economies to enjoy thebenefits of these advances in technology.
Let me end by just very briefly describingto you the approach which the new British government just elected in the lastcouple of weeks to taking some of these international challenges and tomanaging our own economy in Britain. We have great ambitions for the Britisheconomy. Our aim is that within the next 20 years, the British economy will beEurope's largest economy. With our favorable demographics, increasing population,increasing number of young people, and with our flexible labor market, and withvery high percentages of adults in the labor market, it should be possible forus to become Europe's largest economy, though our big weakness where we need todo better is ensuring that our labor force works productively and improvingtheir productivity. As we grow, we want an open and friendly partnership withChina.
We also want the Euro zone to succeed, andit's very important that the Euro zone once more becomes a source of growth,not just in Europe, but across the world. And we will support initiatives thatensure that the Euro zone tackles its problems and becomes an optimum currencyarea. Britain will try to negotiate for a new and better relationship as partof the European Union. The proposals we put forward will not just ensure thatBritain's distinctive economic model is preserved, but we also would beinterested in ensuring that Europe as a whole becomes more competitive in theworld economy. We want those negotiations to succeed, and hope that then wewill have a good, solid, longterm basis for Britain to continue as a member ofthe European Union.
And we also will participate fully indiscussions in the EU about the importance of innovation. And Britain will beinvesting in the technologies that are crucial to the success of the worldeconomy, including IT, digital technologies, internet, robotics, and autonomoussystems, the internet of things and artificial intelligence. But a moreextraordinary excitement we see is the convergence of dry technologies of ITwith the wet sciences of the biological sciences. As they converge, we seeexciting opportunities for improvements in many crucial areas. So, it's goingto be an exciting time, and this conference is crucial to ensuring that all thedifferent nations represented here today come together to secure prosperity forall our peoples as well as advances.
