The city government has invited about 20 heads of the Fortune 500 companies to address the "Shanghai Forum for the 21st Century International Entrepreneurs," which was launched yesterday and will continue till the end of the year.

About 700 local business executives and government officials attended the opening ceremony of the event.

"The purpose of the forum is to help local large companies learn the most advanced management style, strengthen global cooperation, and speed up the globalization process," said Huang Qifan, director of the main sponsor Shanghai Economic Commission.

In his keynote speech, Richard Evans, chairman of BAE SYSTEMS Plc., explained how he had saved Europe's largest aerospace and defense company from bankruptcy and made it prosper over the past decade with his "cultural change" program Benchmark BAE.

"It's something of a cliche to say that organizational transformation begins with personnel transformation, but the success of Benchmark BAE shows there's a lot of truth to it," he said. "Change programs start at the top and success depends on a management team that is willing to work hard to change their companies and themselves."

Senior local government officials and businessmen said they welcomed advice from top multinational executives.

"As a government officer in charge of reforming state-owned enterprises, I'm interested in BAE's practice of clearing bad debts and lightening its burden," said Shanghai Vice Mayor Jiang Yiren.

"I was inspired by Evans' speech, and now have a better under-standing of the importance of human resources," said Li Kerang, president of Shanghai Textile Holding (Group) Co., the city's largest textile producer.

"We used to spend a lot more on buying equipment rather than training employees. This practice should be changed," Li said.

Top executives from some of the Fortune 500 companies, including DuPont, BASF, BP Amoco, Microsoft and Unilever, have accepted the local economic commission's invitations to give special lectures to Shanghai entrepreneurs.

(Eastday.com 03/30/2001)