"Since the end of Febuary 2022 the World is starting a new period of serious disruption ! " Prof.Dr.B.Hallier said at the ERA-Webinar about Sustainability. "All economies around the Globe are changing dramatically and the outcome cannot predicted as also budget-planning is based on total uncertainty about costs of destruction and migration; financing of weapons and destroid or blocked sources for food or energy; delayed total supply chains and new orientationfor markets." he added. "Important for the European Retail Academy are now sustainable Academic relations like being built up in the past with partner universities around the world and also in respect of former joint actions from Ukraine and Russian partners from Moscow,Yekaterinburg, Donetsk, Odessa and Kiew . Those personal friendships beyond all political and religious orientation is the Credo of our Academic community and our obligation for the Future Generation" Hallier claimed.

At the close of the First ERA-Webinar aimed for the support of the UN Sustainability Goals top players from Kazakhstan , the Nobel Laureate Prof.Dr.R.Chung and Prof.Dr.Hallier signed the Draft of a MOU being enlarged at the Nobel Festival organized in Kazakhstan from April 12th-15th 2022. The MOU will be enlarged during that event by additional players and details in content. Generally it is formulated to prepare joint recommendations to the Leaders of G-20 and the United Nations Organizations.
 

The last quarter of this century did bring prosperity via global trade : one of the drivers was the revitalization of the Silk Road. Prof.Dr.B.Hallier has visited in that period many times Kazakhstan but also Usbekistan, Mongolia and China discussing the development with Nobel Laureates at the Astana Economic Summit or with representatives of universities and business of the players along this network.

For Hallier beside the economic effects for the increase of the Wealth of Nations measured in GNP also the cultural bridges were utmost important for the understanding of those countries. "We in the West can learn a lot of the ancient China or about philosophy from Farabi (870 - 950) who studied logic, medicine and sociology and travelled through Kazakhstan ,Syria, Iraq and Egypt. Beside the Greek philosopher Aristoteles he was called the second master in the Arabic tradition. The three Madrasas at the Registan Place in Samarkand had been built between 1417 and 1660 and had been used for study; they had been the universities of those times." Prof.Hallier stated remembering his visits."Going to teach about the West was always also a process to learn from the East " he added. " In respect to the own mind-set it became a growing personal obligation to work for World Peace and resilience between the different tribes of the world population".
 

A very good example for national opinions deriving from different interpretation of facts in history and its controversal consequences uptill today is according to Prof.Dr.B.Hallier the opium trade in the 19th century and action resulting in Colonial times. In the beginning of the 19th century Opium became a drug for parts of the Chinese society like in the 21st century Cocain, Heroin or Crystal Meth in parts of the affluent Western societies. Especially British smugglers earned a lot by this trade : one shipload of opium did have a value of 200.000 Pound Sterling silver at those days. The smugglers could be compared with the drug-cartels of today. To fight that illegal trade the Chinese Government appointed a national coordinator in 1839 who so successfully disturbed the smuggling that the opium-traders asked the British Crown to send battle-ships for protection . The dispute ended with the Peace Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) granting the British trading houses access to Chinese cities and handing over the Hongkong Island to the British Crown from 1842 onwards.

The two British merchants who mainly had initiated the intervention and who after meeting first in Mumbai/India had founded in 1832 the Canton (Guangzhou) based company Jardin, Matheson & Co at the Pearl River now bought land in HK and established in 1844 their company HQ at the harbour side : being in the end of the 20ies century the skyscraper Connaught Center. Over the time William Jardin (1784-1843) and James Matheson (1796 -1882) and their families had established a global company acting in more than 20 countries and beeing the biggest Trading House of Asia in the end of the 20ies century also being called the British Commonwealth Century. One of its roots of success was a very intensive network of Chinese merchants : the first and most important of them Wu Ping-chen Howqua II from the Canton-area.

In 1997 the company moved its HQ to the Oasis for Taxes of the 21st century : the Bermuda Islands in the Carrebean Sea. Insofar the character of the actors remained the same over the two centuries. - In literature the history is according to the impressions of the trade-historian Prof.Dr.B.Hallier very well described as the back-stage by the two-part epos „Taipan“ and „Noble House“ by James Clavell. „A phantastic intro about the history of HK, of gaining competences, of fraud, mergers, take-overs - and also indicating that back-stage of all business there always remains also a glimpse of emotion which surely is also true in real life“ . The owner-family of Jardin, Matheson and Co. belongs also in the 21st century to the group of millionaires : they still own big farm-areas in Scotland and England; also as hobbies they keep on going the more feudal life-style of the past : horse-riding and hunting.
 

On proposal of Prof.Dr.B.Hallier the Hall of Fame of the European Retail Academy selected as its personality of the year 2022 the NobelLaureate 2021 (Literature) Prof.Dr. Abdulrazak Gurnah born on Sansibar/Tansania in 1948, living today in the UK. For Prof. Hallier the life and work of Prof.Dr. Gurnah reflects two hot topics of todays challenges for economics : he is personally an example for microeconomic adaption and reinvention by the cultural clashes on Sansibar in the mid-sixtieth of the last century and his escape as a migrant to the UK ; becoming a well-respected author about sociological problems and phenomena of migration which is a multi-national topic for the countries being left by migrants as well as the successful integration into the work-force and culture of the host-countries.

For Hallier this choice of personality for the Hall of Fame should demonstrate the fact that it is human beings who are giving the interdisciplinary input for the wealth of nations : nearly each society of the world is a mix of different ethnic groups which either by change of borders during history or by individual migration (from small to bigger scale) have an enormous impact on societies around the globe. "This is what present and future leaders have to be taught. It is part of ethics to respect diversity and to listen to controversial opinions and experiences to optimize the own GNP" Hallier concluded. More : Hall of Fame (LINK )
 

It is worth mentioning that already in May 2013 student delegates from the Eurasian Economic Youth Forum on the way from Yekaterinburg/Russia to Nur Sultan/ Kazakhstan drafted a declaration under the leadership of Prof.Dr.M.Fedorov/USUE and Prof.Dr.B.Hallier/ERA for more attention of "green issues". This paper was signed at the Forum also from the 2007-Nobel Laureate Prof.Dr.R.Chung/Korea as the first external professor - and followed by the launch of www.european-retail-academy.org/GGU designed by the ERA-trainee Dr.Alina Pukhovskaya/Russia.

Now again a new tool to promote "sustainability" is developed by the ERA-trainee Dr.Vilena Nencheva/Bulgaria who created the idea of a first ERA-Webinar being launched at March 18/19th 2022. After greeting words by Nobel Laureate Prof.Dr.Chung the other participating speakers will be B.Hallier/ERA and the European Buying Director from CHEP, E.Benzes.More info about free access of the Webinar by violena.nencheva@gmail.com .