Government and Policy

V.President Xi speeks at World Investment Forum 2010

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-09-07 21:32

XIAMEN: Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping Tuesday delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the World Investment Forum 2010.

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 US$1 trillion, and had made US$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.

In the process of building an open economy, China has worked in various forms to help developing countries enhance self-development capacity, improve the livelihood of their peoples and narrow the North-South gap.

For instance, China made an additional contribution of US$50 billion to the IMF replenishment plan, making it clear that the fund should be used to support least developed countries on a priority basis; China inaugurated a China-ASEAN Investment Cooperation Fund of US$10 billion, and provided US$15 billion of credit support to ASEAN countries, to help promote regional economic and financial stability.

China provided US$10 billion of credit support to members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, US$10 billion of concessional loans to African countries, and cancelled debts owed by heavily-indebted poor countries and least developed countries in Africa; China gradually introduced zero-tariff treatment to 95 percent of exports from all the least developed countries with which China has diplomatic ties, and helped developing countries mitigate the impact of the international financial crisis, ease the employment pressure, and stabilize the economic situation. We will encourage more Chinese enterprises to "go global", and will continue to deepen South-South cooperation, and truly help developing countries raise economic development capacity. Ladies and Gentlemen, Whether in the past, at present or in the future, it is always China's long-term strategy to make good use of both domestic and global markets and resources, and promote both inbound and outbound investment.

Our aim is to promote scientific and harmonious development at home and pursue peaceful and cooperation-based development with other countries. As China's open economy continues to develop, foreign investment in China will surely enjoy a broader space and generate even more profits. China is taking vigorous steps to create a more open and optimal investment environment for foreign-invested enterprises. First, we continue to foster an open and transparent legal environment. China's socialist market economy is an economy based on the rule of law, and its investment environment is protected by laws that are open and transparent. In the thirty years and more of China's reform and opening-up, we have amended, on four occasions, the Catalogue for the Guidance of Foreign Investment Industries, and in each amendment, our focus has been to further expand the scope of market access and optimize foreign investment structure.

Since China's accession to the WTO in 2001, we have effectively promoted investment facilitation and transparency of the investment environment. We have steadily improved laws and regulations guiding foreign investment, increased decision-making transparency, better regulated administrative behavior, made timely information release of development programs, industrial policies, access criteria and industry developments. Recently, the Chinese government promulgated the Several Opinions of the State Council on Facilitating the Use of Foreign Investment, and introduced a series of innovative measures to optimize foreign investment utilization structure, expand areas of opening-up and diversify foreign investment utilization.

To be more specific, we will encourage more foreign investment in high-end manufacturing industries, high-tech industries, modern services industries, new energy, energy-saving and environmental protection industries. We will encourage foreign investors to move to and increase investment in the central and western regions, and develop labor-intensive industries meeting environmental requirements in the central and western regions.

We will encourage foreign investment to participate in the reorganization, restructuring, merger and acquisitions of Chinese enterprises in the form of equity purchase, merger and acquisition, expand channels of funding for foreign-invested enterprises in China, and give a better play to the role of foreign investment in scientific innovation, industry upgrading and balanced regional economic development.