Dear Ambassador Lyu, so great to see you again, dear Mr. Feng Guoqin, Mr. Zhou Hanmin, citizens of Shanghai, Europe and the rest of the world,

Good afternoon! On behalf of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, I extend my warm welcome to all of you to this wonderful conference. I would like to shortly talk about three topics.

The first topic is civil society. For the Robert Bosch Stiftung, civil society as such is a very important aspect of our work. We ourselves are a member of civil society and civil society becomes more and more important in the international context of connecting people. The aspect of talent that Ronald Graetz just mentioned is crucial for attracting people to a creative space within civil society and within a city, a space that remains mostly undisturbed by any official interference, something that we strongly believe in Europe.

The second point is “people to people”. If you talk about cities, you may talk about their beautiful tall buildings, the most important aspect however, what constitutes cities, are the inhabitants. The Robert Bosch Stiftung strongly believes in eye-level exchange between people. That is why I highly welcome the idea of serving as a guinea pig for the Charhar Institute in their internationalization strategy. There can only be progress when there is exchange between people from different cultures.

My third point is the human scale. This morning we were at the official opening of the World Cities Day and we listened to the official letter by Premier Li Keqiang. When we talk about urban planning and livable cities, we need to refocus on the human scale. If you look at the room we are in right now, it’s a beautiful conference room, but for me it’s also a little bit too big. If I walk around my second hometown Shanghai you have a lot of places in this city where you feel very, very small as a human being. So I think in terms of diplomacy but also in terms of city development rescaling is a very important aspect. I look forward to our discussions in the next two days and I am very grateful for all the expertise that Prof. Jan Melissen and the Charhar Institute have attracted to our conference, to our creative space here in Shanghai. I very much welcome you to join our discussion not only this year but also next year in Berlin！

Thank you very much.