Xi describes new start, new blueprint for global business leaders
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Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the Business 20 (B20) summit in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, Sept. 3, 2016. (Xinhua/Ma Zhancheng) |
President Xi Jinping on Saturday assured global business leaders with a vision that China, having reached a new historical starting point, will integrate itself into a new global growth blueprint.
Despite concerns over China's economic slowdown, Xi said at the Business 20 (B20) summit in the eastern city of Hangzhou that China has the confidence and ability to maintain medium-high rate of growth and deliver more development opportunities to the world while ensuring its own development.
NEW START
After 38 years of reform and opening up, China has come to a new starting point to deepen reform across the board and foster new drivers of economic and social development, adapt its economy to a new normal and transform its growth model, and further integrate itself into the world and open itself wider to the world, according to Xi.
Rapid growth over the past few decades has elevated China to the position of the world's second-largest economy, showering benefits on nations worldwide as well as the country's own people.
But its export-driven and investment-led growth model, which once propelled development, has reached its limits. Emerging problems -- industrial overcapacity, high debt levels and environmental degradation at home and sluggish global demand -- weigh on growth.
Speaking on the eve of a summit of Group of 20 (G20) major economies, Xi said China has the confidence and ability to maintain medium-high rate of growth as the country continues to deepen reform, pursues an innovation-driven development strategy, advances green development, promotes equity and sharing of development outcomes, as well as opens up wider to the outside world.
"China's goal of reform has been set and we will not deviate from it. China will take sure and firm steps in advancing reform and will not slow down its pace," he said.
Though China posted its slowest annual growth in a quarter of century last year, policy makers have refrained from taking any radical stimulus moves. Instead, they have resorted to supply-side reforms to optimize the economic structure, prune industrial overcapacity, slash costs, and boost efficiency.
Those efforts are painful and take time to deliver, but some positive results are beginning to take shape.
The economy is now more balanced, and driven more by consumption than investment. Consumption contributed 73.4 percent to China's economic growth in the first half of 2016, up 13.2 percentage points from the same period last year.
On a new starting point, China's development could chart the course of the world's development as well as the agenda setting of the G20, said Su Ge, president of the China Institute of International Studies.
NEW BLUEPRINT
Xi said China will work with other parties to ensure that the Hangzhou summit comes up with an integrated prescription to address both the symptoms and root causes so that the world economy could move along a path of strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth.
All parties at the summit should work to build an innovative and open world economy to generate new drivers of growth and expand the scope of development, he said.
The world economy should become interconnected and inclusive to forge interactive synergy and strengthen the foundation for win-win outcomes, Xi said.
Against the backdrop of lackluster global economic growth, "we need to innovate our macroeconomic policies and effectively combine fiscal and monetary policies with structural reform policies," Xi said.
With members representing more than 85 percent of global economic output and two-thirds of the world's population, G20 has an undeniable influence on managing the global economy.
The G20, which held its first leaders' summit after the global financial crisis, has played an important role in crisis response.
The G20 has come to "a crucial juncture of development," Xi said.
One of the goals of China's G20 presidency is to enable the G20 to transform from a crisis response mechanism focusing on short-term policies to one of long-term governance that shapes medium- to long-term policies, and solidify its role as the premier forum for international economic governance, he said.
"This year's G20 has, for the first time, put the issue of development front and center of the global macro policy framework," Xi said.
It is also the first time that the G20 makes an action plan for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and carries out cooperation to support the industrialization of African countries and least developed countries, he said.
The solutions China offers will help build the G20 a community of common destiny, said Hu Angang, an economist with Tsinghua University.
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