In an address delivered during the opening ceremony of the Global Trade and Investment Promotion Summit 2024 in Beijing on Monday, Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng said China will continue expanding high-level opening-up and sharing its development dividends with all parties, while reaffirming China’s stance that they should uphold win-win cooperation and work together to promote common development.
A number of foreign participants affirmed China’s important role in maintaining the stable development of the world’s supply chain, looked forward to cooperation with China in a wide range of fields, and held in-depth discussions with Chinese participants on how to unblock the supply chain.
Former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who is president of the New Development Bank, stressed the key role of the Belt and Road Initiative in reforming the international financing system, while calling for a new structure to improve financing conditions for countries in the Global South. Rousseff believed the “decoupling “and “de-risking” attempts promoted by Western countries have made globalization more fragile and called for a reform of the existing international financing system.
A study by the International Monetary Fund says China’s economic growth has had positive spillover effects on the rest of the world, saying that for every percentage point of its economic growth, output in other economies would increase by an average of 0.3 percentage points. As the world’s second-largest economy, China’s economic performance has added much-needed stability and vitality to the world economy.
China makes it clear that its commitment to wider opening-up remains unwavering. In the Beijing Initiative released at the summit, China vows to build a network of services for enterprises, expand its international “circle of friends”, and put up multiple platforms to provide better services and help the business communities of all countries seize the opportunities of the Chinese market, so as to contribute better to the building of an open world economy and a community with a shared future for mankind.
China has a huge domestic market and this advantage can help it play a leading role in stabilizing global supply chains and boosting global economic growth. The sharing of China’s experience through the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative is also expected to help promote the realization of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. China’s advantages in green and low-carbon development, especially in clean energy and new energy vehicles, mean that there is still a lot of room for its cooperation with foreign countries. China’s far higher economic growth than the world’s average will also bring more development opportunities.
Many foreign participants did not agree with the argument of China’s “overcapacity”, believing instead that cooperation with China can not only accelerate carbon reduction, but also set an example of cooperation to address climate change.