World Economic Forum opens in Dalian

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Global business leaders and policy makers have gathered in the northeastern Chinese coastal city of Dalian for the three-day Summer Davos Forum, also known as the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2009.

Topping the agenda at the forum will be discussions about ways to revive world economic growth. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony Thursday afternoon.

"Relaunching growth" is the theme of this year's Summer Davos Forum, and the aspiration of a world slowly stepping out the global financial crisis.

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao addressed more than 1,400 participants from 80 countries and regions at the opening ceremony. He said in the face of the grave challenge posed by the worst slowdown in decades, the Chinese government has taken swift actions to maintain economic growth -- and the results have been positive.

Wen Jiabao, Chinese Premier, said, "We have curbed the downward movement of the national economy. The GDP growth rate in the first half of this year has reached 7.1 percent. Investment and domestic consumption have been on steady increase.

In the first seven months of this year, we had created more than 6.6 million new jobs for urban residents. We have also effectively controlled fiscal and financial risks. The scale of China's fiscal deficiency and national debts has been controlled within three percent and 20 percent of the G-D-P. By the end of June, the bad-loan-ratio of major commercial banks had dropped to 1.8 percent, down by 0.64 percent compared to early this year. And the capital adequacy rate exceeded 11 percent."