On the evening of September 20th, the fourth session of Tongji University’s Humanities and Social Sciences Grand Lecture Series “Guohao Forum” and the opening lecture of the School of Economics and Management’s (SEM) 40th Anniversary Series were successfully held. Liu Run, Deputy Secretary of the Tongji University Party Committee, attended the event. Wu Ge, an outstanding alumnus of SEM’s 1994 Construction Management class and currently Chief Economist & President Assistant of Changjiang Securities, delivered an insightful report titled “Real Estate and the Economy” to faculty and students present. Representatives from the Office of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Development Planning and Discipline Construction Department, the Freshman College, Tongji University China Institute for Innovative Strategies, and the School of Economics and Management, along with over 200 faculty and students, attended the lecture. Prior to the report, Liu Run presented Wu Ge with a Certificate of Appreciation for the “Guohao Forum.”

Dr. Wu Ge began by recalling his student days at Tongji University, expressing his deep affection for his alma mater. He noted that Tongji not only provided him with a solid foundation in science and engineering but also cultivated his interdisciplinary thinking ability, which has played a crucial role in his academic research and career development.Dr. Wu then delved into the relationship between the real estate industry and economic development from both micro and macro perspectives. At the micro level, using residents’ basic needs for “food, clothing, housing, and transportation” as a starting point, he explained the core role of real estate in fulfilling material needs and constituting residents’ stock assets. At the macro level, he clearly illustrated the close relationship between real estate and macroeconomic performance, arguing that the real estate sector holds systemic importance within the economic framework.

Subsequently, Dr. Wu Ge provided a detailed analysis of the current challenges facing China’s real estate sector, including weakened expectations, intensifying supply-demand imbalances, and persistent negative growth in macro-level prices. Through comprehensive charts and graphs and drawing on international comparative studies of price control measures in the US and Japan, he demonstrated the strong linkages between housing prices, overall credit, and the economic cycle.

During the interactive session, students actively posed questions on topics such as real estate vs. property tax, consumption downgrading, and population aging, which Dr. Wu Ge patiently addressed one by one.

The “Guohao Forum” is one of Tongji University’s key initiatives to deeply study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, act upon the spirit of the National Conference on Publicity, Thought, and Cultural Work, and advance the development of a “Humanities Tongji.” The forum, grounded in the practice of constructing China’s independent knowledge system, invites renowned scholars from various fields both domestically and internationally to Tongji. Through consistently offering high-quality, general, and diverse academic lectures, it strives to cultivate Tongji students into innovative talents who embrace the “strategic priorities of the nation”, possess both humanistic spirit and scientific rigor, and are worthy of being “national elites”.