China will never stop its pace of reform, opening-up

Chinese President Xi Jinping recently delivered a major speech at a grand gathering marking the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in south China’s Guangdong province.

He made major strategic deployment for the SEZ’s reform and opening-up on a higher level for the new era, and declared China’s resolution and confidence to deepen its reform and opening-up and share more development dividends with the world.

“The world economy is currently facing complicated challenges. By no means should we be stopped by the reversing trends and tides. We should choose the right side of the history to unswervingly expand opening-up in an all-round way, and promote the building of an open world economy and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind,” he said at the gathering.

Shenzhen has accomplished in four decades what took other metropolises around a hundred years to complete, which marks a miracle made by the Chinese people in the history of the world’s development.

Shenzhen’s achievements are a reflection of the historic changes and results made by China since the reform and opening-up. During the past 40 some years, China has been pursuing development with its door wide open, and made an impressive transition from being a largely closed society to one that’s open to the world in all respects. The country is always active in promoting economic globalization, and has made its due contribution to the common development of mankind.

The keen appreciation and accurate grasp of the trend of the times are a key reason for China’s success. In the new era, the country will keep conforming to the trend of history, and actively respond to and seek changes to proceed with the time. At present, the world is going through changes unseen in a century, and the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the changes. China has been and will always maintain firm confidence and concrete actions to promote high-quality economic development and achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

China, calmly responding to the headwinds against economic globalization and the severe situation of the sluggish world economy, is taking more forceful measures to deepen its reform and opening-up with firmer confidence, which has won appreciation from the world.

Since this year, China has optimized its mechanisms and systems of market-based allocation, and issued a master plan for the Hainan free trade port. Besides, it lowered tariffs for a part of imported commodities, actively expanded imports, and further shortened its negative lists for foreign investment market access. It established new free trade pilot zones and issued a plan on implementing pilot reforms in Shenzhen to build the city into a demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the next five years.

The concrete steps for China to comprehensively deepen reforms and expand opening-up prove to the world that no matter how international situations change, the country will always remain firm in its commitment to pursuing development and create new space for common development.

Opening-up brings progress and cooperation leads to win-win results. China, enjoying a momentum for long-term growth and strong development resilience, is accelerating the establishment of a “dual circulation” development pattern in which domestic economic cycle plays a leading role while international economic cycle remains its extension and supplement, which has not only opened space for China’s economic development, but also injected impetus into the recovery and growth of global economy.

According to China’s General Administration of Customs, China’s foreign trade volume grew 0.7 percent in the first three quarters of this year compared with that in the same period in 2019, achieving positive growth for the first time this year. The latest World Economic Outlook of the International Monetary Fund also predicted that China will be the only economy in the world to show positive growth in 2020 while forecasting a 2020 global contraction of 4.4 percent.

During the 8-day National Day Holiday, over 600 million trips were made across the country, generating tourism revenue of more than 460 billion yuan ($68.6 billion). Chinese railways set a new record in daily passenger traffic as more than 15 million trips were made on Oct. 1.

The resilience and energy of the Chinese economy has injected confidence for the development of the world economy. A French media outlet noted that China was leading the world after it achieved solid economic recovery. Bloomberg said that the active domestic tourism indicated the strength of China’s economic recovery.

China has gained rich experiences of reform and opening-up, but it still has a long way to go. The country will remain committed to the path of deepening reforms and expanding opening-up. It will unwaveringly follow a win-win strategy to draw development impetus from the world and benefit the world with its own development, explaining with concrete actions its major country responsibility that “A single flower does not make spring, while all flowers in full blossom bring spring to the garden.”