George Town’s historic City Hall was the setting for the inauguration of the Penang Institute, previously known as the Socio-Economic and Environmental Research Institute (SERI). This took place on December 9, 2011 alongside the Institute’s second Penang in Asia lecture on “Finance and the Current Recession”
“We are here to ponder the future of the world from Penang,” Penang Institute's executive director Liew Chin Tong explained in his opening remarks. “Penang Institute is a modest attempt to provide a platform for new ideas to flourish and bear fruit through implementation in Penang and beyond.''
