Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday delivered a keynote speech via video at the APEC CEO Dialogues.
Full Text: Keynote speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping at APEC CEO Dialogues
Leaders of the Business Community,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear Friends,
At a critical time when the world is fighting COVID-19 and exploring ways to achieve economic recovery, I am glad to have this dialogue with you through video links.
This is an unusual time in history for us humanity. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated changes unseen in a century in the world. The global economy finds itself into deep recession, its industrial and supply chains are disrupted, and governance, trust, development and peace deficits continue to grow. Mounting unilateralism, protectionism and bullying as well as backlash against economic globalization have added to risks and uncertainties in the world economy.
However, peace and development remain the underlying trend of our times. Meeting challenges through cooperation is the only way forward for us in the international community. This pandemic once again shows that the interests of all countries are closely interwoven and that humankind shares a common stake. Indeed, our world is an indivisible community with a shared future. To beat the virus and promote global recovery, we in the international community must close ranks and jointly respond to this crisis and meet the test. All countries should act in the spirit of partnership and get through this tough time together. We need to step up policy communication and coordination, intensify all-round global cooperation against COVID-19 and keep global economy open. By doing so, we can defeat the virus at an early date and achieve robust, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth for all.
Since the start of this year, facing the sudden onslaught of COVID-19, China has put people and life above everything else. The 1.4 billion Chinese people, united as one, have made a major strategic achievement in fighting the virus. We have endeavored to both contain the virus and speedily bring production and life back to normal, thus maintaining economic and social development. China’s economy resumed positive overall growth in the first three quarters this year. This hard-won achievement speaks volumes about the resilience and vitality of the Chinese economy. The fundamentals sustaining China’s steady and long-term economic growth remain unchanged. We have full confidence and ability to maintain stable economic performance and achieve the goals of finishing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects and eradicating poverty within the set time frame.
At its recently concluded Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee, the Communist Party of China deliberated on and adopted the recommendations for formulating China’s 14th Five-Year Plan. According to the recommendations, China will complete building a moderately prosperous society in all respects within the set time frame. From next year on, China will embark on a new journey toward fully building a modern socialist country. We will develop a full understanding of the new development stage, and apply the new development philosophy. We will foster a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other. The new development paradigm is a strategic decision we have made based on the current stage and conditions of development in China and with full consideration given to economic globalization and changes in the external environment.
First, we will expand domestic demand as a strategic priority and ensure smooth flow of economic activity. In recent years, China’s development model of reliance on foreign markets and resources has gone through some gradual changes. The ratio of foreign trade to GDP dropped from 67 percent in 2006 to less than 32 percent in 2019, while the ratio of current account surplus to GDP has come down from 9.9 percent in 2007 to less than one percent today. In seven years since the 2008 global financial crisis, the contribution of China’s domestic demand to GDP exceeded 100 percent, making domestic consumption the main driver of its growth. In promoting domestic and international circulations, the Chinese economy has become much more domestically driven and the performance of China’s development has been significantly enhanced. Fostering a new development paradigm will enable China to better adjust its economic structure and achieve high-quality development. China will continue to deepen supply-side structural reforms and further expand domestic demand. Doing so will make production, distribution, flow of goods and services, and consumption in China more based on domestic market, and it will make the supply system better adapt to domestic demand. This will usher in a higher stage of well-adjusted balance where demand drives supply and supply, in turn, creates demand.
Second, we will vigorously make scientific and technological innovations to foster new growth drivers. A new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is gathering pace, and science and technology are playing an even more significant role in boosting social productivity. To China, innovation has always been the primary driver of development, and we have made major achievements by implementing an innovation-driven development strategy. As China enters a new stage of development, factors of production underpinning its development have gone through profound changes. This means that China must pursue innovation to achieve high-quality growth driven by domestic demand. We will fully leverage the demand of our super-sized domestic market and the strengths of its complete industrial system and redouble efforts to turn research outcomes into real productivity. We will endeavor to build an innovation system that integrates science and technology, education, industries and the financial sector, and upgrade the industrial chains. This will sustain China’s long-term economic development.
Third, we will continue to deepen reform and energize the market. What we have achieved during the past 40-plus years of China’s reform and opening-up shows one thing: Reform is crucial for unleashing and boosting productivity. China has entered a new stage of development and faces new tasks of reform. We will take more steps and remove with greater resolve deep-seated systemic and institutional barriers to modernize China’s governance system and capacity. We will enhance our ability to better apply the new development philosophy, namely, one of pursuing innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development. We will transform the growth model, upgrade quality and performance, and make growth drivers more robust. We will accelerate the building of a modernized economy, strengthen protection of property and intellectual property rights, set up a high-standard market system and improve mechanisms for fair competition. All this will fully motivate all types of market entities.
