09 November 2005 | 11 November 2005 | China

China's emergence onto the world stage has created unprecedented opportunities and challenges to business people and policy makers from all over the world. China has become a market, an investment location, a production platform, and a competitor. That's why it was important to celebrate the TCI 2005 Global Conference in Hong Kong: to get to know how the Chinese economy was growing and what is its impact on the world.

The 2005 meeting certainly was a special conference, as the main focus was on China and its impact on the world. Hosted by the Hong Kong Institute of Economics and Business Strategy, the conference reunited cluster practitioners, business people and policy maker to share knowledge and to discuss about the influence of China on other economies and how these economies can compete with the country.

Although many of the sessions were relationed with China's rise, a relevant amount of meetings were focused on more tradicional TCI issues. In the past conferences, TCI experts saw that there was still a necessity to build on the knowledge about clusters, especially for those who already were working with cluster, but still felt a need to deepen their knowledge.

Therefore the 8th Global Conference oferred a lecture stream on the advanced nuts and bolds of clustering to guide these people through the conference. In the same way they saw the need for including a stream on rethinking competitiveness. Experts from all over the world showcased and discussed their experience on clusters and competitiveness.