Every year, the world's most distinguished political, commercial and academic elites gather in China to forecast international trends and navigate global economic problems at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, or the Summer Davos Forum. This year, the forum was focused on shaping innovative societies in the fourth industrial revolution.

Held on September 18-20, the event attracted more than 2,000 guests from over 100 countries to north China's Tianjin Municipality, a coastal city with a long history of interacting with the outside world.

"China has the key role in the global transformation of new development models, which are characterized by technological innovation and based much more on intangible and digital assets," said Klaus Schwab, founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, who said he believes that supported by the wave of technological innovation, further reform and opening up will help the country continually achieve its goals, not only by focusing on quantitative targets, but by being mainly driven by high-quality standards.

When China first implemented the policy of reform and opening up in 1978, the country's GDP was a mere 367.9 billion yuan ($218.47 billion at 1978's exchange rate). But now, the figure has shot up to 82.7 trillion yuan ($12 trillion). During the past four decades, China's economy registered an annual average growth of 14.5 percent, adjusted for inflation. According to statistics from the World Bank, the global economy only grew at an annual average speed of 2.91 percent since 1979. That's to say, China's rapid rise has significantly contributed to global growth.

"China will further open itself at a faster pace. Globalization has presented China and all countries around the world with tremendous development opportunities," said Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Summer Davos Forum.

Opening up continued

Confronted with a complicated world situation and an uncertain external environment, Chinese leaders still have a firm determination to open up wider to the outside world, which has not only brought huge benefits to China, but also created tremendous opportunities for the rest of the world.

Chairman of IBM Greater China Chen Liming noted that over the course of 40 years of reform and opening up, many foreign companies have experienced a shift in development strategy from "Made for China" to "Made in China" to "Made with China."

In the early years of reform and opening up, the huge Chinese market was quite attractive to foreign companies which were later engaged in bringing products to the country. At the time, many Chinese firms, as trade agents, also began to get to know cross-border products, international marketing and the rules of the international game, said Chen, adding that the first batch of foreign companies entered China to reach its huge market.

Today, many foreign players have switched to the "Made with China" mode, which means bringing innovation to the country and experiencing common development, said Chen.

"Chinese companies are developing by leaps and bounds, competitively emerging on the international market. That has also spurred foreign companies to shift their roles," said Chen.

Xu Niansha, Chairman of the Board of China Poly Group Corporation, suggested that Chinese companies should continue firmly carrying out the policy of reform and opening up and pay close attention to the international situation.

"We should communicate and cooperate more with our international business partners in order to achieve win-win results," said Xu.

The Chinese Government has given support and encouragement to entrepreneurs and helped them to reduce costs and pursue innovation, so that they can become more competitive and vibrant in the international market, said Albert Ng, Chairman of Ernst & Young China.

"China is a very large economy with unbalanced internal development, which has in turn endowed it with great hedging capacity and allowed it to resist external shocks. China's steps to open up, especially on the financial front, should be appropriately controlled and can be a little bit bolder when necessary," said Liu Shijin, Vice President of the China Development Reform Foundation.

"China should be committed to building a high-level opening up system and never cease its steps and focus on forming a high-quality market system domestically," said Liu.

In June, China released a new negative list for foreign investment access, further opened up its service industry and accelerated the implementation of measures concerning financial opening up and the removal of restrictions over the proportion of foreign equity in the manufacturing industry.

Belt and Road afoot

During the 13th National People's Congress held in March, President Xi Jinping stressed that China should push forward overall opening up with a broader view, higher goals and standards and more effective measures, speed up the formation of new trade models and patterns, actively participate in the Belt and Road Initiative and strengthen the opening up and cooperation of innovation capacity.

"Since the Belt and Road Initiative was proposed five years ago, China has reached consensus and signed 149 intergovernmental cooperation documents with 105 countries and 29 international organizations, with economic and trade activities along the routes becoming increasingly frequent and dynamic," said He Lifeng, Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.

More than 24,000 jobs have been created by the initiative. A total of 82 economic and trade development zones have been set up in countries along the Belt and Road, with total investment reaching $28 billion, He said.

Innovation, in terms of both concept and mechanism, is an important driving force behind the fruitful achievements, He noted.

The Belt and Road Initiative has brought new services and new opportunities for closer cooperation among countries, facilitated the trading of goods and services, promoted helpful new technologies and strengthened exchanges of knowledge and ideas, said Raimonds Vējonis, President of Latvia when explaining why his country needs to participate in the initiative.

Key Points of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's Speech At the 2018 Summer Davos Forum

China's reform and opening up in the past four decades is also in keeping with the trend of globalization. China will further open up at a faster pace. Globalization has presented China and all countries around the world with tremendous development opportunities.

It is essential that we uphold the basic principles of multilateralism and free trade. We believe these rules have, first and foremost, benefited the progress of all mankind. And any existing problems need to be worked out through consultation. Unilateralism offers no viable solutions.

We believe that the new drivers of growth are being shaped in today's world. These are in keeping with the trend of globalization, and they are critical for inclusive development and growth. They have helped to further integrate the global industrial supply and value chains and they help create opportunities for each individual to develop and innovate.

We are now seeing an encouraging shift from traditional drivers of growth to new ones. These new drivers have been growing at a better-than-expected pace. In this process, new industries, new forms of business and new models have played a key role in keeping China's economic performance stable. We have released important measures to cut taxes and fees and to streamline administration so that the market will be able to play a bigger role in boosting these new growth drivers.

China's hi-tech and advanced manufacturing industries are leading the country's industrial development, with new businesses emerging in the service sector accelerating industrial upgrades and transformation.

New forms of consumption, such as information consumption, are also expanding much faster than GDP growth. Consumption is now contributing over 60 percent to China's economic growth. It is fair to say a major shift has taken place in China's economic structure and growth pattern.

China's economic structure and growth model have undertaken fundamental changes, with new growth momentum contributing more than one third of overall economic growth and more than two thirds of new jobs in urban areas, laying a solid foundation for sound and sustainable development.

In the first half of the year, China's economy expanded by 6.8 percent, staying within the medium-high growth range of 6.7 to 6.9 percent for 12 quarters in a row. In the first eight months of the year, over 10 million urban jobs were created and the urban unemployment rate was kept at a relatively low level of around 5 percent. Corporate profits of large industrial companies have maintained double-digit growth. On the whole, the Chinese economy has stayed on a track of steady progress.

China will work even harder to stimulate innovation and new drivers of growth in the new industrial revolution. We need to ensure that we can fully unlock the passion for innovation.

Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo

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