BEIJING — Messages from the China Development Forum 2019 show that China will further open its market and make a significant contribution to globalization and world prosperity.
With a nearly 1.4 billion population, China is a good example of an open economy, as well as a defender and a promoter of globalization.
Addressing the forum in Beijing on March 23, Apple CEO Tim Cook applauded China’s achievements during past decades in terms of reform and opening-up. “We are grateful that you have opened your doors to us and allowed us to be part of the community here,” he said.
Apple sees China’s continuous opening-up as essential not only for China to reach its full potential but also for the global economy to thrive, he said.
Harald Krueger, CEO of BMW, expressed his confidence in China’s market, noting that China is the world’s largest auto and electric car market, and many multinational corporations have benefited from China’s fast-growing market, with the BMW being one of them.
Having made all the achievements, China will never stop its efforts to further open its doors. The country’s national legislative session in March approved a new foreign investment law, paving way for further sharing the country’s market and opportunity with the world.
As China’s first unified law on foreign investment in decades, it lays solid groundwork for high-quality opening-up and paves the way for high-quality growth.
Concrete measures concerning opening-up in various fields have already been announced by the Chinese government.
The negative list for foreign investment will be reduced, and wholly foreign-invested enterprises will be allowed in more sectors.
China has also pledged to continue pushing forward the construction of pilot free trade zones (FTZs), including enhancing openness in key spheres such as medicare and education.
At the ongoing forum, China’s central bank governor Yi Gang stressed five aspects concerning the opening-up of China’s financial sector: opening up the financial service sector; combining the opening-up of financial market with the reform of the RMB exchange rate formation mechanism in a coordinated manner; fully implementing the pre-establishment national treatment plus negative list management system; improving the rules concerning financial market opening-up and enhancing institutional and systematic openness; improving business environment and optimizing financial regulation.
Once promises are made by the Chinese government, they are bound to be fulfilled because China fully understands that a country can never achieve the goal of high-quality development with its doors closed.
As China is determined to open its doors wider, there are plenty of reasons to believe the rest of the world will share fatter dividends from China’s development.