Economist

Amidst economic turmoil and financial speculation in the EU region, the euro zone summit held in October 2011 has set ambitious goals of recovery, financial stability and job creating growth. A stronger and deeper union, both fiscal and economic is advocated by euro zone leaders, together with bank recapitalisation and reforms to ensure the sustainability of public finance. Big steps have been agreed, but has enough been done to contain the public debt crisis? This is not a British Chamber event.

 Is modern economic thinking failing us? Is it time to ditch modern economic ideas and reconsider notions about the free-market, competition, regulation and trade? Are we facing the end of growth and the end of progress?

Join the FT and Britcham for a thought provoking session with Graeme Maxton, author of 'The End of Progress: How modern economics has failed us,'  which raises provocative questions about the long term prospects for economic growth, about the sustainability of our resource use, about the consequences of China's rise and about the West's measures of progress. 

 In the latest in our series of briefings by economists, Charles Dumas and Diana Choyleva from Lombard Street Research warn that the failure to agree globally integrated solutions to the underlying causes of the economic and financial crisis will mean that 2012 will not bring the widely anticipated sustainable and sound recovery, but instead another global economic disaster.

 In the current environment the alarmist "China hard-landing" view is quickly gaining acceptance. But is this really true?  Morgan Stanley's Chief Economist, Greater China, Qing Wang, and Hong Kong and China Strategist, Jerry Lou, will debate these issues and offer insights into where China is heading.