On the evening of November 4, President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony of the fifth China International Import Expo (CIIE) held in Shanghai via video link and delivered a speech titled “Working Together for a Bright Future of Openness and Prosperity”. Hon. Dr. Edward Hinga Sandy, Minister of Trade and Industry of the Republic of Sierra Leone, attended the opening ceremony virtually.
President Xi Jinping noted that five years ago, he announced the decision to hold the CIIE for the very purpose of expanding China’s opening up and turning China’s enormous market into enormous opportunities for the world. Today, the CIIE has become a showcase of China’s new development paradigm, a platform for high-standard opening-up, and a public good for the whole world.
President Xi Jinping stressed that openness is a key driving force behind the progress of human civilizations and an intrinsic path toward global prosperity and development. The world today is confronted with accelerated changes unseen in a century as well as a sluggish economic recovery. We should commit ourselves to openness to meet development challenges, foster synergy for cooperation, build the momentum of innovation, and deliver benefits to all. We should steadily advance economic globalization, enhance every country’s dynamism of growth, and provide all nations with greater and fairer access to the fruits of development.
President Xi Jinping noted that as the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has underscored, China remains committed to the fundamental national policy of opening up to the outside world, pursues a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up, and adheres to the right course of economic globalization. We will amplify the interplay between domestic and international markets and resources, strive to create new opportunities for the world with our own development, and contribute our share to building an open global economy.
—China will work with all countries and all parties to share the opportunities in its vast market. We will step up efforts to cultivate a robust domestic market, upgrade trade in goods, develop new mechanisms for trade in services, and import more quality products. We will establish pilot zones for Silk Road e-commerce cooperation and build national demonstration zones for innovative development of trade in services, so as to encourage innovation in trade and promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.
—China will work with all countries and all parties to share the opportunities from its institutional opening-up. We will steadily expand institutional opening-up with regard to rules, regulations, management and standards, put into full effect the new Catalogue of Encouraged Industries for Foreign Investment, and further develop the national integrated demonstration zone for greater openness in the service sector. We will implement the strategy to upgrade pilot free trade areas, accelerate the Hainan Free Trade Port development, and tap into their role as pilot platforms for comprehensive reform and opening-up.
—China will work with all countries and all parties to share the opportunities from deepened international cooperation. We will engage fully and deeply in WTO reform negotiations, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and enhance international macro-economic policy coordination, with a view to jointly fostering new drivers for global growth. We will endeavor actively to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) to expand the globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas. We will firmly support other developing countries and assist them in growing faster, and promote the building of a human community with a shared future.
Before he ended his speech, President Xi Jinping stressed that the path is unfolding before us, and a brighter future beckons beyond. China is ready to work with all countries to practice true multilateralism, build more consensus for openness, jointly overcome the difficulties and challenges confronting global economic growth, and make sure that our commitment to openness will bring about broad prospects for global development.
