Posters: Deepening reform to advance Chinese modernization is to provide more opportunities for global development

Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a written speech at the APEC CEO Summit on November 15, 2024 under the title "Keeping Abreast of the Trend of the Times and Jointly Promoting Prosperity Around the World."

President Xi mentioned in the speech that the Communist Party of China held the Third Plenary Session of its 20th Central Committee last July, and adopted a comprehensive plan for further deepening reform across the board to advance Chinese modernization.

"More than 300 important reform measures were introduced at the meeting," he noted, "and they will be fully implemented within five years."

This will provide not only strong impetus for China’s economic and social development, but also more opportunities for global development, President Xi stressed.

Here are the highlights.

— China will deepen reform comprehensively and continue to provide robust momentum for the world economy. China will build a high-standard socialist market economy, foster a fairer and more dynamic market environment, and make resource allocation as efficient and productive as possible. China is endeavoring to achieve breakthroughs in key areas such as reforming the fiscal and tax systems, building a unified national market and advancing new urbanization. It is taking targeted steps to boost consumption and increase domestic demand so as to improve the effectiveness of reforms. China has adopted a full range of major reform measures, which will give a vigorous boost to the rebounding and growth of the economy. We have full confidence in meeting the growth targets for this year and remaining the biggest engine of world economic growth.

— China will advance high-quality development and continue to lead the efforts to improve the performance of the world economy. In the first half of this year, investment in China’s high-tech manufacturing and service sectors achieved double-digit growth, and its economic structure and growth model improved steadily. China will continue to nurture new quality productive forces in line with actual conditions, promote deep integration of the real economy and digital economy, boost the service sector, further modernize infrastructure, and make industrial and supply chains more resilient. China is committed to high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and will work with all participants to put in place a network of connectivity featuring integrated land-sea transportation and coordinated development.

— China will stay firmly on the path of green development and continue to be an important force for global green transition. In recent years, the “green quotient” in China’s social and economic development has continued to rise. China has become the first country around the world with “zero increase” in land degradation, and its newly-added area of afforestation accounts for a quarter of the global total. China is actively expanding new energy sectors and facilitating international cooperation on green mining. It has achieved one of the world’s fastest rates of energy intensity reduction. In 2023 alone, China’s wind and solar power products have helped other countries reduce about 810 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and enabled them to access clean, reliable and affordable energy. All this has been an important part of the global effort to address climate change.

— China will build new, open and higher-standard economic systems and continue to share China’s development opportunities with the world. Opening up is a defining feature of Chinese modernization. Since the start of this year, China has lifted all restrictions on foreign investment in manufacturing, and established for the first time a nationwide negative-list system for cross-border trade in services. We have taken systematic steps to further open the telecom, Internet, education, culture, medical service and other sectors. We have also taken the initiative to apply high international standards of economic and trade rules, including those in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA), as part of our plan to steadily enhance institutional opening up. We have expanded the coverage of the 144-hour visa-free transit policy to facilitate inbound visits to China, and “Travel to China” is getting very popular around the world. Going forward, China will introduce more policies for voluntary and unilateral opening up, expand its globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas, and open its door even wider to the world.