Xi reiterates China's resolve to open up at high standard

BEIJING, May 18 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping Wednesday reiterated that China's resolve to open up at a high standard will not change, and the door of China will open still wider to the world.

Xi made the remarks when addressing the conference of the 70th anniversary of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the Global Trade and Investment Promotion Summit via video link.

Noting that founded in 1952 as a China-based institution with a global outlook, Xi said the CCPIT has been playing an important role in strengthening the bond of interest between Chinese and foreign businesses, promoting international economic and trade exchanges, and facilitating state-to-state relations.

The 70-year journey of the CCPIT has been an epitome of China's ever-expanding opening-up endeavor, and an important witness of how businesses from different countries could share in development opportunities and benefit from win-win cooperation, said Xi.

Xi stressed that with the world facing a pandemic and drastic changes both unseen in a century, economic globalization is experiencing headwinds, and the world is entering a new period of volatility and transformation. Now more than ever, business communities across the world yearn for peace and development, call for fairness and justice, and aspire for win-win cooperation.

Calling for pulling together to defeat COVID-19, Xi said the pandemic that has been going on unabated is posing a serious threat to the life and health of the people, and taking a heavy toll on the world economy.

He laid stress on putting people and their lives first, actively engaging in international cooperation on vaccine R&D, production and distribution, bolstering global public health governance, jointly building multiple lines of defense against the virus, and working for a global community of health for all.

Xi also called for reinvigorating trade and investment, urging balancing pandemic response and economic development, and strengthening macroeconomic policy coordination across countries.

He stressed the need to advance the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in all respects, and help the global economy upgrade its growth drivers, shift its growth model and adjust its structure so as to steer it onto a track of long-term, healthy and stable growth.

To allow development gains to better trickle down to people of all countries, Xi urged supporting the WTO-centered multilateral trading regime, ensuring security and stability of the global industrial and supply chains, and making the "pie" of cooperation bigger.

When it comes to unleashing the power of innovation in driving development, he called for tapping into the potential of innovation in spurring growth, jointly stepping up intellectual property protection, making rules on the basis of extensive participation and consensus building, and fostering an open, fair, equitable and non-discriminatory environment for scientific and technological development.

Xi stressed efforts to intensify exchanges and cooperation on innovation, facilitate integration of science and technology with economic growth, increase the sharing of innovation results, and remove all barriers that hamper the flow of knowledge, technology, talent and other factors of innovation.

Talking about improving on global governance, he urged upholding true multilateralism, embracing a global governance vision featuring extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and mobilizing resources from across the world to meet global challenges and advance global development.

Xi called for choosing dialogue over confrontation, tearing down walls rather than erect walls, pursuing integration instead of decoupling, opting for inclusiveness, not exclusion, and guiding reforms of the global governance system with the principle of fairness and justice.

"China's resolve to open up at a high standard will not change, and that the door of China will open still wider to the world," Xi reiterated.

China will continue to foster an enabling business environment that is based on market principles, governed by law and up to international standards, Xi said, adding that China will pursue high-standard implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement and high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and offer more market, investment and growth opportunities to the global business community.

"Let us join hands to uphold peace, development, cooperation and win-win partnership, work together to meet the problems facing the global economy, trade and investment, and jointly usher in an even brighter future," Xi said. ■