- Prospect for China’s Economic Development from Premier Li Keqiang’s Address at the Opening Ceremony of the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2017
Wang Fukang- Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to the Republic of Maldives
Chinese Premier of the State Council Li Keqiang delivered a speech at opening ceremony of the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2017 in Dalian in the morning of 27 June 2017.Premier Li noted that signs of world economic and trade recovery have begun to emerge and the new round of industrial revolution has given people new hope. Economic globalisation has become an irreversible trend.
At the annual meeting of the world Economic Forum early this year, President Xi Jinping elaborated on China’s firm commitment to economic globalisation and free trade. The theme of this annual meeting, “Achieving Inclusive Growth in the Fourth Industrial Revolution”, is highly relevant to our times.
China has actively pursued inclusive growth at home. In keeping with the principles of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, we have highlighted inclusiveness in our development strategies and worked to promote inclusive growth through providing institutional guarantee and policy support. This has been an important reason why Chinese economy has steady growth.
We have given priority to employment in pursuing development. Over the past few years, over 13 million new urban jobs have been created on a yearly basis, and surveyed urban unemployment rate has been kept at around 5%. This is a truly remarkable achievement for a major developing country with more than 1.3 billion people.
We have encouraged more people to go for entrepreneurship and innovation. For the past three years, an average of over 40,000 new market entities have been set up every day, including some 14,000 newly registered enterprises, which has delivered benefits to all the people and greatly advanced economic transformation and upgrading.
We have continued to raise the standards of basic social welfare for our people. China has put in place three social safety nets covering the entire population, i.e. basic pension, basic medical care and compulsory education. In the past 30 years, over 700 million Chinese have been lifted out of poverty, creating a Chinese miracle in the history of poverty reduction. We are now putting in targeted poverty alleviation efforts with the goal of taking the remaining over 40 million rural poor out of poverty by2020.
The Chinese economy has maintained a momentum of steady and sound growth this year. Pleased as we are with the solid performance of economic indicators, we feel even more encouraged by major shift from too much reliance on export and investment to generating growth through consumption, the service sector and domestic demand.
We are also facing significant economic difficulties and challenges. Given the complex and volatile external environment, short-term and marginal fluctuations of some economic indicators are inevitable at this crucial stage of transformation and upgrading of China’s economy, but the overall trajectory of stability and growth will remain unchanged, and we will fulfill this year’s main targets and tasks of development. We are fully capable of ensuring that the economy performs within a reasonable range, keeps systemic risks away, maintains medium-high growth rate and moves to the medium-high level.
We will deepen reform across the board, keep to innovation-driven development, focus on streamlining administration, delegating government powers and cutting taxes and fees, and accelerate the shift from old growth drivers to new ones. Meanwhile, proactive efforts will be made to expand opening-up and build a globally competitive business environment. We will introduce one-trillion-yuan reduction in taxes and fees for businesses this year, which will be applied equally to foreign-invested companies. In the coming five years, China will import eight trillion US dollars worth of goods. A Chinese economy which enjoys a sound momentum in the long run and becomes increasingly open will remain the most attractive investment destination.
As long as we harden our resolve and make relentless efforts, stability will prevail over uncertainty. This has helped us to blaze a path of inclusive growth with distinctive Chinese features.
Blaze a Path of Inclusive Growth
