Your Excellency Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,

Distinguished Guests,

Dear Friends,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Second World Investment Forum of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is being held from 6 to 9 September in Xiamen, a dynamic special economic zone in China. The sustained and fast development the Xiamen special economic zone has achieved since its establishment 30 years ago proves that developing an open economy is the right thing to do and illustrates the importance of attracting foreign investment and conducting mutually beneficial cooperation. At the outset, I wish to extend, on behalf of the Chinese Government and people, warm congratulations on the convocation of the forum, and sincere welcome to the heads of state and government, political leaders, representatives of relevant international organizations and the more than 1,000 business leaders from around the world.

The First World Investment Forum sponsored by UNCTAD in 2008 played a positive role in improving the global investment environment and promoting investment cooperation. The theme of this year's forum, "Investing in Sustainable Development", meets the aspirations of countries in the world, developing countries in particular, for promoting economic development through foreign investment attraction, and contributes to the attainment of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Let me take today's opportunity to express my deep regards to UNCTAD for the important contribution it has made over the years for upholding and advancing the interests of developing countries.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thanks to the concerted efforts of the international community, the world economy is gradually moving out of the shadow of the financial crisis and heading towards recovery. However, such recovery is neither firmly established nor balanced, and there are still significant uncertainties down the road. While countering the impact of the international financial crisis, China has adhered to the policy of reform and the win-win strategy of opening-up. We expanded market access in line with universal international economic rules, advanced trade liberalization and investment facilitation, and accelerated the transformation of economic development pattern, with focus on expanding domestic demand and boosting household consumption. Following the principles of independent initiative, controllability and gradual progress, we steadily pushed forward the reform of the RMB exchange rate formation mechanism. In 2009, China attracted a total of $90 billion in foreign investment, ranking second in the world. In the first half of this year, China approved 12,000 new foreign-invested enterprises with a paid-in investment of $51.4 billion, up by 19 percent and 21 percent year on year respectively. Also in 2009, domestic investors from China made direct investment in 111 countries and regions, and China's outward direct investment in non-financial sectors totaled $17.8 billion, which represents a 44 percent year-on-year increase. All this has laid an important foundation for the early recovery of the Chinese economy against the backdrop of the international financial crisis and contributed positively to global economic recovery.

To follow the basic state policy of opening-up, unswervingly develop an open economy and pursue a win-win strategy of opening-up is a useful experience that has underpinned the sustained and rapid development of the Chinese economy over the past 30 years and more. To attract foreign investment, pick competitive foreign investors and bring in "financial resources" and "intellectual resources" both at the same time is an important element of China's opening-up policy. By July 2010, a total of 698,000 foreign-invested enterprises had been established in China, registering a paid-in capital of $1.05 trillion. Today, in China, 22 percent of tax revenues, 28 percent of added industrial value, 55 percent of foreign trade, 50 percent of technology import and some 45 million job opportunities are contributed by foreign-invested enterprises. Opening to the outside world and attracting foreign investment are mutually beneficial and complementary. For China, continued introduction of foreign investment has provided necessary fund, advanced technologies and valuable managerial expertise and many global-minded talents to support the country's modernization drive. For foreign enterprises, investing in China has generated handsome returns. Many foreign-invested enterprises in China have become the growth engines and profit centers of their parent companies' global business. The latest UNCTAD survey shows that China is still the most appealing host for investment in the world.

In recent years, we have worked in line with the characteristics of the different stages of opening-up, and the requirements to improve an open economic system that focuses on both domestic and international markets, that promotes win-win and mutually beneficial cooperation, and that emphasizes security and effectiveness. And we have actively summed up our successful experience in past years. We better coordinated our "inviting in" and "going global" strategies, adopted new ways of conducting overseas investment and cooperation and supported enterprises to develop international operation in research and development, production and distribution. By the end of 2009, China had set up a total of 13,000 overseas enterprises with overall assets reaching more than $1 trillion, and had made $245.7 billion of overseas investment in 177 countries and regions. We are stepping up efforts to facilitate various forms of overseas investment cooperation, develop our own multinational companies and support well-positioned enterprises to establish international sales distribution networks. We are working to strengthen overseas infrastructure construction cooperation, and develop overseas labor contract cooperation in a well-managed fashion. And we are actively advancing the construction of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones. Our aim is to alleviate the tensions between overcapacity and weak domestic demand, stimulate industrial transformation at home and, at the same time, promote exports of relevant products and services.