Full coverage: Summer Davos Forum 2016

Full coverage: China’s Leaders

The Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also called the Summer Davos, has begun in north China’s Tianjin city. 

Premier Li Keqiang delivers a keynote speech at the opening of the annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin on June 27, 2016. [Photo / Xinhua]

The three-day event brings together political and business leaders to discuss the hottest topics from Asia’s economic outlook, and China’s 5-Year Plan, to the disruptive forces behind much of today’s changing economic climate. “The Fourth Industrial Revolution and Its Transformational Impact” is the official theme. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivered speeches at the forum’s opening ceremony.

The message from Li is loud and clear. He started off by calling on all countries to join hands and face up to the world’s difficulties and challenges together.

“Every country has their own circumstances, but the general direction, in view of the economic imbalances, should be to promote financial reform, deregulation, promote competition, support innovation, expand development, and work together to promote strong, sustainable and balanced growth in the world economy,” Li said.

China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, released last year, outlined China’s short-term development path, with growth driven by innovation, coordination, green development, opening up and sharing.

“We will deeply promote mass entrepreneurship and innovation, combine elites and grass-roots online and offline, as well as enterprises and research institutes to form a new power for innovation,” Li said.

China now hosts more than 2,500 incubators for high-tech businesses and about 4,000 innovation bases.

It saw a record startup boom in 2015 as nearly four-and-a-half million companies were established, up more than a fifth on last year.

The premier said big state-owned companies should make good use of "innovation and entrepreneurship" in order to take a lead in the market. And there is also good news for the private sector. Li said the government will continue to eliminate the barriers and abolish the unreasonable market entry criteria, and stimulate private capital.

Around 1,700 politicians, entrepreneurs, scholars and media representatives from more than 90 countries or regions are attending the forum this year.