Pay-to-play event: Execs pay top dollar to meet China’s leaders

CEOs of companies gather in Beijing with top academics and politicians

BEIJING: The China Development Forum this weekend may be the most important economic summit you have never heard of.

The CEOs of companies ranging from Facebook to Rio Tinto gather in Beijing with top academics and politicians for a pay-to-play event promising audiences with China’s top leadership.

Participants are invited to make “donations” to the elite event starting at 1 million yuan ($155,000) and ranging upwards from there, according to documents obtained by AFP.

For 3 million yuan, the companies are allowed to name a panel discussion and “nominate speakers and panellists”.

Proceeds go to “relevant research projects and administrative expenses of the conference”, which is organised by the little-known China Development Research Foundation (CDRF), a proxy for one of the Communist government’s planning agencies.

“Other forms of donation are open for discussion,” the documents say, with one previous attendee suggesting participants can pay extra to be seated near top leaders.

The forum, which is in its 17th year, directly follows the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s rubber stamp legislature, and is pitched as an opportunity for leaders of the financial and business world to learn about the parliament’s achievements.

This year, the NPC approved the country’s new five-year plan, which will guide economic and social policy to 2020, and attendees are “keen to hear from the horse’s mouth” what the document means for the nation’s ailing economy, said the long-time participant, who asked not to be named in order to speak frankly about the event.

Even though the panels and speeches are of questionable value, CEOs “fork out a lot of money to be there”, he said.

“This year in particular is the best attendance list I’ve ever seen”.

When the forum started in 2000, only 19 “delegates” attended, according to that event’s website. But 16 years later, following the international financial crisis and China’s transformation into the world’s second-largest economy, the invitation-only event has become a Who’s Who of global power brokers.

Return attendees include International Monetary Fund Director Christine Lagarde and the CEOs of major global companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Siemens, Boeing and IBM. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2016.

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