The G20 Leaders' Communique released early this week after the close of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Antalya, Turkey, acknowledged that global trade and investment continued to be important engines for economic growth and development and they generated employment, and contributed to welfare and inclusive growth. "The profound impacts of the international financial crisis are lingering, and the world economy is still in a period of deep adjustment", said Chinese President Xi Jinping while delivering a speech entitled "Innovative Growth That Benefits All" at the G20 summit. Xi thus proposed building an open world economy and reinvigorating international trade and investment. Chinese government believes that opening up is a necessary path for a nation's prosperity and development.
The "Proposal on Formulating the Thirteenth Five-year Plan (2016-2020) on National Economic and Social Development," which was adopted at the Fifth Session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee ended on Oct. 29, proposed accelerating foreign trade improvement and upgrading, and transforming the country from a manufacturer well known for quantity production to a manufacturer proud of quality production; and making its foreign trade propped up by high quality with matching handsome prices and quality import and export in the coming five years.
The 13th Five-year Plan and the adjusted growth strategy of China both are aimed at optimizing and upgrading the country's foreign trade, thus making it a driving growth of global trade in the coming five years. Although China experienced a slowdown in economic growth since the beginning of this year, its contribution to global economic growth reached 30 percent and it is still the fastest-growing major economy across the world.
China has played a vital role in boosting global economic growth. Statistics show that from 2008 to 2013, China contributed 37.6 percent to global gross domestic product growth and its contribution to global economic growth in 2014 was 27.8 percent. During the 12th Five-year Plan period from 2011 to 2015, China became the world's largest country in terms of commodity trade and a major outward investor.
Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said in a paper explaining the foreign trade policy of China stated the 13th Five-year Plan that China will make efforts to improve the competitiveness of products with traditional dominance, such as the labor-intensive consumer goods produced by the light industry and textile; strengthen new leading export industries such as machine-building; and attach great significance in developing trade in services.
Gao said the transition from export of consumer goods to export of both consumer goods and capital goods is an important direction for the upgrade of China's foreign trade. International trading powers are usually large exporters of capital goods. In the 2016-2020 period, China should seize the opportunity of a new wave of global infrastructure construction and promote machine-building exports led by international project contracting with finance and insurance services as backup.
In addition, Chinese government proposed increasing the imports of energy resources, advanced technology, key parts and components as well as consumer goods in great demand at home, said Gao. Promoting two-way opening up, facilitating orderly factor flow, and realizing effective resource allocation and in-depth market convergence are crucial for China to improve the strategic layout of opening up. Xi stressed that China has the confidence and ability to sustain a medium high growth rate and continue to create development opportunities for other countries. As global economy has become more integrated and China is an important part of it, Xi's speech shows that China is willing to make development and help other countries develop with it.
The 11th G20 summit will be held in the Chinese resort of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on September 4-5, 2016 and the theme will be "Building an innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy". One of the important topics is to be trade investment and cooperation for the G20 summit next year, disclosed Wang Xiaolong, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's special envoy on G20 affairs.
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