Desn Speech

It is great honor for me to berecommended as the first dean of China Public Finance Institute at ShanghaiUniversity of Finance and Economics. I wish to work together with allcolleagues and scholars around the country and the world to devote efforts onthe researches on public finance, public service, and public policy for theimprovement and development of China’s public finance.

Shanghai University of Finance andEconomics is a renowned university in China, especially in the fields of publicfinance. With science academic spirit, pragmatic academic ideas, rigorous academicstyle, the university has trained numerous scholars and talents and reachedhigh academic achievement during the past decades. In terms of teaching andresearch on public finance, the university balances on the innovation andprogress in both theoretical and practical researches with solid and creativelearning atmosphere, which helps to the growth of famous scholars on academicresearch in public finance. Based on the exiting conditions, the universityprepared to found a research institute which links scholars within the countryand overseas and government agencies on public finance and taxation to workclosely together on researches on various issues in public finance and toprovide advisory service for national strategies and policies. As a seniorofficial in public finance, I greatly acknowledges the efforts that ShanghaiUniversity of Finance and Economics has taken.

China Public Finance Institute is aresearch institute specialized on public finance theory and practice. It wouldbe great for me to have both senior scholars with research experience and youngscholars with new ideas and concepts. Meanwhile, I also welcome practitionersfrom the government ministries to join us. With sufficient academic freedom, wewish to accommodate all types of researches and opinions, no matter howdifferent they appear to be, on policies of public finance, including thedevelopment, the social welfare, the legal system, and the performanceevaluation of the public sector. We wish to integrate the functions of academicresearch and policy advisory in one institute in order to build a channelbetween the two functions and to make China Public Finance Institute a keythink tank on China’s public finance.

China has achieved extraordinaryeconomic progress for the past three decades since the reform and opening up,and the system of public finance is not an exception. In addition to theexpanding magnitude of fiscal revenue and spending and improving fiscalpolicies, we are pleased to see a more legalized, more equalized, morescientific, better performed, and more open fiscal system. However, we shouldbe cautious on the problems that have been accumulated during the years ofeconomic development and the operation of the fiscal system, which, if nottreated properly, would inevitably harm the sustainable development of theeconomy as well as the finical system. The Central Committee of the ChineseCommunist Party has proposed a new strategy on the changes in the modes ofeconomic development and in economic structure so as to achieve sustainabledevelopment of the economy and the society. The implementation of the newstrategy requires researches and adjustments in the concepts and ideas ofdevelopment, redistribution policies, and fiscal policies, among which the publicfinance sector plays a significant role. The simultaneous needs of continuousreform and opening up and scientific, coordinative, and harmonious developmentrequires us to summarize and analyze the past experience in the development ofthe economy as well as the fiscal system, so as to reveal the major problems,to provide effective methods and paths for further reforms to the system, andto provide intellectual support for the nation’s key policy making in publicfinance. This is our honorable mission but also one kind of socialresponsibility. I wish that we can unite experts, scholars, and practitionersfrom all works of life to light the stage of China’s fiscal and economicreform.

April, 2016