Tutor2u in Madrid 2012

It was great to host Geoff and Mo (see below) here at King’s in Madrid last Friday as 100 students from three schools gathered for the AS and A2 Macro Revision Workshops that have toured the UK this spring – a fantastic boost to their study programmes a few weeks before exam season starts.

The only difference to the UK format was Mo’s talk on the Chinese economy given at the end of the day. This is clearly Mo’s area of expertise and it gave the students a real insight into what it means to have your economy experiencing 10% yearly growth for the last 20 plus years.

The talk was peppered with astonishing facts like Beijing airport’s terminal three having more floor space than all five of Heathrow’s terminals, the ghost cities that have been built without a single inhabitant, the incredible speed with which a high speed rail network is connecting this vast country, the world’s largest shopping mall etc - the sheer scale of these infrastructure projects is breathtaking and is testament to the ambitions and aspirations of the no longer sleeping giant – as Geoff mentioned, China can no longer be classed an emerging economy, she has emerged! (108 Giant Chinese Infrastructure Projects That Are Reshaping The World). Big thanks to Geoff and the team and see you next year!

Finally, Peter Day was in great form last night on radio 4 analysing China’s real estate bubble and he starts in Ordos new town (some eery images here), one of the ghost cities Mo was referring to in his talk here in Madrid. Surely thousands of acres of empty housing estates are a pretty clear indicator that a property bubble is taking place – here in Spain, you don’t have to travel far to find evidence of the aftermath of the irrational exuberance that led to Spain’s current predicament!