By He Yin, People’s Daily
China’s economy took center stage at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting 2024,
which was themed “Rebuilding Trust”. Participants actively praised the enhanced resilience of
China’s economy and businesses over the past two years. They acknowledged that China’s efforts
would create more opportunities for global economic growth and employment.
China’s pursuit of high-level opening-up was seen as having a positive impact on promoting
international economic and trade development. The attendees widely recognized that China’s
solution was indispensable in addressing the global trust deficit.
Currently, the global economic recovery is fragile and sluggish and lacks momentum, the
development gap is widening. The impact of geopolitical conflicts on global development is
becoming increasingly evident.
More than 2,800 representatives from over 120 countries and regions gathered at the WEF Annual
Meeting 2024 in Davos, Switzerland with a common goal of promoting global economic
governance and helping the world economy overcome difficulties and sail towards a brighter
future.
China has always been sharing the same goal with the WEF. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s
important remarks on promoting economic globalization and upholding true multilateralism, as
articulated at WEF platforms, hold profound practical significance in addressing global
challenges.
While striving for high-quality development of its own economy, China has always been sincerely
committed to fostering an open world economy and has made tremendous efforts to improve
global economic governance. The facts have proven that China is the most trustworthy partner.
China’s economy is steadily advancing, providing sustained strong impetus for global economic
development. Over the years, China’s contribution to world economic growth has stayed at around
30 percent. In 2023, China’s economy showed positive overall growth, with a year-on-year
increase of 5.2 percent in GDP. It has been repeatedly emphasized by international media outlets
that China’s economic growth rate was among the top in the world’s major economies.
According to the World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report, driven by China’s
economic recovery, the economic growth in East Asia and the Pacific region is projected to
increase from 3.4 percent in 2022 to 5.1 percent in 2023.
China has established sound and solid fundamentals in terms of the industrial base, production
factors and innovation capacity. The conditions supporting high-quality development continue to
gather and increase. The overall trend of long-term growth will not change.
Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the WEF, noted that China’s healthy economic development
brings very positive spillover effects to other parts in the world.
China remains firmly committed to opening up, and continues to create favorable conditions for
the world to share in its opportunities. China is a major trading partner of over 140 countries and
regions, with the overall tariff level cut to 7.3 percent, relatively on par with the developed
members in the World Trade Organization.
Currently, global demand remains insufficient, and the market is the scarcest resource. The
Chinese market, with its vast space and growing depth, will play an important role in boosting
aggregate global demand.
China warmly welcomes foreign companies to continue investing in China and strives to create a
first-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized. China
will steadily expand institutional opening up, continue to shorten the negative list for foreign
investment, follow through on removing all restrictions on access for foreign investment in the
manufacturing sector, and guarantee national treatment for foreign businesses.
According to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the return on FDI in the Chinese
mainland had been around 9.1 percent over the past five years, while in Europe and the United
States, it was around 3 percent. The facts have already proven and will continue to prove that
choosing the Chinese market is not a risk but an opportunity.
China advocates for a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization and continues to
contribute wisdom to improving global economic governance.
Economic globalization is an inherent requirement of developing productive forces, a natural
result of scientific and technological advancement, a sure path to human progress and more
importantly, an irreversible trend of the times.
In order to promote economic globalization for the greater benefit of people around the world,
China advocates for a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization. A universally
beneficial and inclusive economic globalization means meeting the common needs of all
countries, especially the developing countries, properly addressing the development imbalances
between and within countries resulting from the global allocation of resources.
It is important for the international community to resolutely oppose the attempt to roll back
globalization and abuse the concept of security, oppose all forms of unilateralism and
protectionism, firmly promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, overcome the
structural problems hindering the healthy development of the world economy, and make economic
globalization more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all.
In response to the prominent challenges facing the global economy, China advocates for
strengthening coordination of macroeconomic policies, enhancing international division of labor
and cooperation, promoting international scientific and technological exchanges and cooperation,
fostering collaboration in green development, and strengthening North-South and South-South
cooperation. These proposals provide practical and feasible solutions for rebuilding trust in the
international community.
Only when all sides treat each other with sincerity and work in the same direction can there be a
stronger foundation of trust and more fruits of cooperation. While focusing on effectively
managing its own affairs, China will uphold solidarity, cooperation, openness, and sharing, and
work together with all parties to improve global economic governance, so as to promote the steady
and sustainable recovery of the world economy.
