NEW YORK - The starting point of Richard Attias' quest to understand more about China began during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and is winding through two economic forums in the hopes of finding how China has become a nation filled with numerous employment opportunities.

The 51-year-old former producer of the World Economic Forum in Davos is holding his second annual New York Forum (June 20-21) and in September will launch China360, a semiannual platform that will showcase a selected Chinese city with a population of more than 5 million. One of the key issues in both forums will be how China has created so many new jobs.

"We need to create jobs, and nobody has the miracle solution," he said. "I'd like to know how so many new jobs are created in China to keep a double digit growth. We need to hear their voices."

The Moroccan-born global event producer, who brought the Davos Economic Forum for the first time to Dalian in Northeast China in 2007, believes that if there is somewhere everyone has to be today, it must be China.

In his Midtown office in Manhattan, Attias recalled how his vision of China began at the 2008 Games (although he first visited China in 1986), where he was involved in the creation of the opening ceremony. Recently, Attias visited seven Chinese cities in seven days, calling it "a marathon trip in China".

"It is a country with promising and passionate young entrepreneurs and a country with doers. It is a country that has a vision and implements that vision quickly," Attias said.

At the New York Forum, a panel of high-profile business leaders and politicians will put their heads together to discuss a number of global economic issues. Among the participants are 26 Chinese CEOs, such as Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing and Feng Lun, chairman of the Vantone Group, a Chinese real estate firm.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who took part in last year's forum, will participate again this year. Other speakers include Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to US President Barack Obama, Manuel Camacho Solis, former mayor of Mexico City, and participants from the Middle East and Africa.

"The New York Forum is held at the place where the financial crisis started and it will try to address the major issues (the) global economy is facing and to come up with solutions," Attias said, adding that the outcome of the forum will be presented to the G20 Summit in Cannes, France, in November.

The forum will also address women in leadership positions in business. The panel will feature his wife, Ccilia Attias, the former first lady of France and founder of the Ccilia Attias Foundation for Women.

Every year a number of business forums are held in New York City, gathering business leaders to meet and network. Attias seems to have a clear goal of what this forum should achieve.

"I am not too ambitious, but at least the forum will come up with a series of proposals. It's a call for action to restore credibility and to restore faith. It is a call for action to find solutions," Attias said.

Trained as a civil engineer in France, Attias worked in sales for IBM before he started the firm Global Event Management in 1990. He has thus far produced 3,000 events around the world and has worked with more than 2,000 CEOs.

When he was the producer of the Davos Forum, he met former president Bill Clinton on one brief occasion, which later led to his involvement in helping launch the Clinton Global Initiative, or CGI, an initiative that uses the private sector to create innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges.

After living most of his life in Paris, Attias moved to New York in 2004 and set up his current event management company, Richard Attias and Associates, in 2008. The firm has offices in Paris, Dubai and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. An office in Shanghai or Beijing, he said, is coming soon.

In characterizing China, he said "people (outside China) don't understand what is going on in China, some only see the clichs about China".

His recent China trip was also a search for emerging cities in the country. In his visits to Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chengdu and Chongqing, he was amazed by the massiveness of the cities and the lifestyles.

He recalls that in cities like Chongqing, 80 percent of the motorbikes in the street are electric.

"On a larger, national scale, China is now the world's top investor in alternative energies, and nearly every new industrial project in the country integrates green technology," he said.

China Daily