By Guo Jiping, People’s Daily
The 5th China International Import Expo has started as scheduled at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) (NECC) on November 5th.
The previous four sessions of the trade fair reported remarkable performance – a cumulative intended turnover of more than $270 billion and over 1,500 launches of new products, technologies, and services.
The trade fair, as a “wind indicator” for industries, is a carnival for global enterprises. Over the past four years, it has been consecutively joined by over 120 Fortune Global 500 companies and industry leaders.
This year, the world’s top 10 electrical engineering companies, top four grain producers, top 10 manufacturers of medical apparatus and instruments, top 15 pharmaceutical enterprises, and the 10 most valuable automakers have confirmed their participation in the six-day event.
The success of the CIIE vividly mirrors China’s firm determination to expand opening up, promote win-win cooperation and share development opportunities.
China is home to more than 1.4 billion people, including over 400 million middle-income earners. It imports around $2.5 trillion of commodities and services each year.
Enjoying such a huge market, the CIIE comes with an intrinsic appeal. It is a “golden key” that opens the door to Chinese opportunities for those who want to follow the general trend of economic globalization.
In the first three quarters this year, China’s total foreign trade of goods jumped 9.9 percent to 31.11 trillion yuan ($4.28 trillion). As the country removes all impediments to smooth production, distribution, circulation, and consumption, and accelerates the establishment of a “dual circulation” development pattern in which the domestic economic cycle plays a leading role while the international economic cycle remains its extension and supplement, it will become a market for the world, a market shared by all, and a market accessible to all.
The fundamentals of the Chinese economy – its strong resilience, enormous potential, vast room for maneuvering, and long-term sustainability – remain unchanged. According to statistics recently issued by the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s GDP increased 3 percent year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2022, 0.5 percentage points faster than that in the first half. The Chinese economy, on a track of high-quality development, will give a sustained and strong boost to the stability and growth of the global economy.
Over the past 10 years, China has fulfilled its commitment to further opening up with concrete actions. By implementing the management systems of pre-establishment national treatment and negative lists for foreign investment, it constantly expanded the utilization of foreign capital. With an aim to build a globally oriented network of high-standard free trade zones, the country has inked 19 free trade agreements with foreign countries, up from 10.
It has established 21 pilot free trade zones and the Hainan free trade port, working toward new heights in reform and opening up. Besides, it has hosted high-level expos such as the CIIE, the China International Fair for Trade in Services and the China International Consumer Products Expo. Its efforts have led to tangible and fruitful results of the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative.
China has not only benefited from economic globalization but also contributed to it. It has signed over 200 Belt and Road cooperation documents with more than 140 countries and more than 30 international organizations, to enable more people across the world to benefit from development and promote a new model of economic globalization.
It pushed for the implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership(RCEP) and is advancing its accession into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership(CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement(DEPA).
Embracing economic globalization in the new era, China is working to make economic globalization more open, inclusive, balanced, and beneficial for all and bringing hope to improve global economic governance.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said in a report to the 20th CPC National Congress that: “China is committed to its fundamental national policy of opening to the outside world and pursues a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up. It strives to create new opportunities for the world with its own development and to contribute its share to building an open global economy that delivers greater benefits to all peoples.”
As the first major international exhibition hosted after the 20th CPC National Congress, the 5th CIIE will once again prove to the world that China will only open its door wider to the world.
Profound changes unseen in a century are evolving rapidly in the world. Changes in the world, of our times, and of history are unfolding today in ways like never before. China will join hands with its partners to write more stories of open cooperation and win-win results at the 5th CIIE and make new contributions to promoting world recovery, advancing common development, and building a community with a shared future for mankind.
