In this July, the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was successfully held in Beijing. There has been a lot of global attention on the new blueprint for China’s reform and opening up. The session adopted the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPC on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization, which spells out in detail the next steps in the area of opening up and makes it clear that we must remain committed to the basic state policy of opening to the outside world, promote reform through opening up. Leveraging the strengths of China’s enormous market, we will enhance our capacity for opening up while expanding international cooperation and develop new institutions for a higher-standard open economy.
The plenary session provides an important window for the world on China’s pursuit of high-quality development and high-standard opening up in the new era. China will steadily expand institutional opening up, promote alignment with high-standard international economic and trade rules, expand independent opening-up, improve the mechanisms for high-quality cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, and bring further opportunities to the world.
Market Opportunity. Opening up is a defining feature of Chinese modernization. China enjoys the distinct advantage of a supersize market in terms of demand, as well as a full-fledged industrial system in terms of supply. In his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation on September 5, President Xi Jinping announced that China will voluntarily and unilaterally open its market wider, and has decided to give all the least developed countries (LDCs) having diplomatic relations with China, including 33 countries in Africa, zero-tariff treatment for 100 percent tariff lines. This has made China the first major developing country and the first major economy to take such a step. We hope to make the pie of win-win cooperation bigger and the list of cooperation longer together with the world.
Investment Opportunity. The plenary session put forward over 300 reform measures , sending a strong message of expanding high-standard opening up and promoting high-quality development. We will do more to attract foreign investment, further shorten the negative list for foreign investment, and remove all market access restrictions in the manufacturing sector. We will strengthen services for foreign investors and make China a favored destination for foreign investment. We will make it easier for foreign nationals to work, study, and travel in China. Sound investment environment and high-standard opening-up have raised foreign businesses’ confidence in investing in China. The leading global management consulting firm Kearney released the 2024 Kearney Foreign Direct Investment Index. China jumps from the 7th position last year to the 3rd this year, and tops the emerging markets rankings. To invest in China is to invest in the future.
Growth Opportunity. The latest forecast of the International Monetary Fund predicts that the global economy will grow by 3.2% this year, lower than the growth rate in 2023. Despite the rising instability and imbalance in the global economy, China’s economy remains on a positive trajectory, playing an important role as an anchor and source of strength. China remains a vital engine driving global economic growth. In the first half of this year, China's GDP grew by 5.0% year-on-year, leading major world economies. In recent years, we have provided development assistance for over 160 countries, conducted Belt and Road cooperation with more than 150 countries, advanced cooperation on the Global Development Initiative with more than 100 countries, the UN and many other international organizations, invested and mobilized nearly US$20 billion of development fund and carried out over 1,100 projects, injecting strong impetus for the development and prosperity of the world with concrete actions.
President Xi Jinping has stressed on many occasions, “China will not close its door to the world, and it will only become more and more open” and “China will remain an important opportunity for the world’s development. Our door is wide open to anyone who wants to engage in cooperation with us.”
Given the enormous challenges facing economic globalization, countries in the world have a shared responsibility to oppose unilateralism and protectionism, uphold the global economic order, and keep industrial and supply chains secure and stable. China is pursuing high-standard opening up not just because we’ve achieved remarkable reform and development success through opening up, but also because this is the right way forward as shown by the laws of economy and the trend of the times. It shows China’s full commitment to sharing opportunities with the world. China will integrate itself into the global economy more proactively. We will further deepen reform across the board and in particular, pursue high-standard opening up to galvanize Chinese modernization, deliver more benefits of our opening up to the world, and promote a modernized world that enjoys peaceful development, mutually beneficial cooperation and common prosperity.
Li Yigang, Consul General of the People’s Republic of China in Willemstad