The Current Issues of Economic and Social Integration in Hungary and Taiwan [antikvár]

Foreword by the Rectors of BBS-UAS It was a privilege for Budapest Business School, University of Applied Sciences to host its lst scientific conference with its Taiwanese partners. It was our impression that academics and researchers from our University and from many different Taiwanese educational and research institutions made excellent presentations and came up with many thought-provoking ideas. The unexpectedly high number of Taiwanese friends who accepted our invitation - and we communicate this with pleasure - assisted us a lot to understand better the past and present of Taiwan and we are convinced that they alsó learnt from the Hungárián participants. Though the agenda of the conference was relatively wide, the majority of the participants focused on similar economic and political themes. In other words, while the presentations at the conference and the papers published in this Proceedings embrace a wide area of topics they clearly indicate that even without harmonization the contributors found the same issues important and worthy of debating. It was natural that the individual scholars approached their topic from different angles and dwelt with the questions according to their own perceptions but it was felt all through the event that in spite of the different tones and emphases there were no major contradictions between the views expressed by the Hungarians and the Taiwanese. They all seemed to be in agreement that no single political entity can survive on its own and at the same time, cooperation in our world requires great efforts from the responsible decision-makers to find the common ground with partners who can and are ready to collaborate. And even in case of this kind of mature statesmanship both Hungary and Taiwan depend very much on external factors and that, again, compels them to be active in international affairs, build bridges across borders and communities at every level, including alsó academic cooperation. So, the contributions and lectures convinced us that in our small globalized world there are no real distances in any respect. While we are all unique elements in the global systems in many areas we face the same problems and strive for achieving similar goals. Despite our peculiar characteristics and conditions Hungary and Taiwan has a lot in common and our scholars can find many topics that deserve joint attention and interest. Not least relying on the experiences of the conference, the heavy concentration on régiónál organizations and integrations, Budapest Business School decided to convene the 2nd conference where the central topic will be the future of regionalism and régiónál cooperation in generál. We call our Taiwanese partners, academics and scholars alike, to jóin our endeavor and make this conference a success again. We thank all the participants of the lst conference for their valuable contribution and hope that we can look forward to having a similarly successful event and welcoming our Taiwanese friends and colleagues again. Éva SÁNDORNÉ KRISZT Rector of BBS-UAS 2007-2016 Balázs HEYDRICH Rector of BBS-UAS 2016-