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| China to Honor Commitments After WTO Entry: Vice-Premier |
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SUN, SEP 09, 2001
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Chinese Vice-Premier Wu Bangguo said here Saturday that China will implement the commitments it has made in a responsible manner after it enters the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Wu made the statement at the International Investment Forum of the Fifth China International Fair for Investment and Trade which opened in the eastern coastal city of Xiamen Saturday morning.
Following are the highlights of Wu's speech:
The Fair has played an important role in publicizing China's policies on foreign investment attraction, promoting foreign capital inflow and guiding Chinese companies to make overseas investment. The Fair integrates the strategy of "Attracting Foreign Investment" with "Going Global" and deals with investment and trade together.
It is a combination of exhibitions and negotiations, a venue for both project presentation and policy consultation, and a place where business activities and academic seminars take place at the same time.
With all these striking features, one the one hand, the Fair has created an opportunity for foreign friends and entrepreneurs to know about China and make their way into this country; on the other hand, it has opened a new channel for Chinese businessmen to get acquainted with the rest of the world and go abroad.
China has over the past two decades steadfastly adhered to the policy of opening to the outside world, developed foreign trade in real earnest and actively attracted foreign investment. China's trade value now takes the 7th place in the world and its foreign capital attraction has been ranking as the foremost among all developing countries for eight years in a row.
Reform and opening-up have not only promoted the sustained, swift and sound development of China's national economy, but also helped restructure its economic system. In addition, this process has not only laid a solid foundation for China to develop into the future, but also contributed to the prosperity of the Asian economy and the world economy at large.
China has made unswerving efforts for the accession to the WTO in the past 10-odd years. This has fully demonstrated China's strong commitment to reform and opening-up and its sincerity to participate in international economic cooperation.
China's accession to the WTO is necessitated by three factors: its economic modernization drive, the establishment and improvement of a socialist market economic system, as well as wider and deeper involvement in international competition and cooperation.
At present, all relevant negotiations have basically concluded, which means China's accession will soon become a reality.
After the accession, China will implement the commitments it has made in a responsible way. China will further improve foreign- related laws and regulations and create a well-established legal environment.
It will continue transforming government functions, enhancing work efficiency and nurturing a stronger sense of services among officials so as to create a favorable environment of administration, and keep on rectifying economic order of the domestic market, combating infringements and counterfeiting, and protecting intellectual property rights so as to create a market environment which is featured by unified openness, fair competition and orderly operation.
China will provide greater market access for trade in goods and gradually open trade in services and such infrastructure sectors as energy, transportation and communications.
Over the past few years, China's foreign investment attraction has maintained good momentum with an annual FDI (foreign direct investment) of around 40 billion U.S. dollars. The influx of foreign capital has played an important role in stimulating domestic investment demand, encouraging China to carry on the reform of economic system and open wider to the rest of the world, and promoting the sustained, rapid and healthy development of China's national economy.
We should also take note that the Chinese economy has undergone tremendous transformation. Consequently, many new circumstances have emerged in the aspect of utilizing foreign capital:
1. China has changed from a seller's market into a buyer's market. Most production and consumption materials are oversupplied and general processing industry is troubled by excessive capacity.
2. The structural environment of economic development is very different from the past. The socialist market economic system has taken shape and the market is increasingly playing a fundamental role in the allocation of resources.
3. Opening-up has evolved into a new pattern while the domestic economy links closer with the world economy as each day passes by.
In this context, our efforts in attracting foreign investment should be focused on improving the overall quality of the national economy, enhancing international competitiveness and the capability to withstand risks.
We will change, as appropriate, the way we work and shift our focus. Foreign investment attraction should be integrated with economic restructuring, industrial upgrading and optimization, as well as improvement of corporate efficiency. It should serve the purpose of improving the socialist market economic system and strengthening companies' international competitiveness.
Furthermore, it should contribute to export expansion and the development of an export-oriented economy. During the course, it is imperative to absorb overseas capital. More importantly, we shall pay greater attention to the introduction of advanced technologies, modern management expertise and specialized talents so as to improve the quality and level of foreign investment utilization.
Major efforts should be put into the following aspects:
1. Providing correct guidance to foreign investment inflows. Rather than focusing on general processing trade, we should give more attention to the hi-tech industry, those industries with advanced and applicable technologies, as well as the service industry.
2. Encouraging multinational corporations to help Chinese state- owned enterprises reorganize and upgrade so as to facilitate the strategic reorganization and restructuring of these SOEs.
3. Encouraging foreign-invested companies to expand export and developing domestic supporting industries. We shall delegate more trading right to foreign-invested companies to propel an open economy.
4. Implementing the policies that encourage foreign investment in the central and western regions of China so as to accelerate the development of these regions.
5. Creating more favorable external environment for foreign investors, including soft environment such as policies and laws and hard environment like infrastructure.
Meanwhile, we will also carry out the open strategy of Going Global and encourage qualified companies with competence to make overseas investment. In this way, we can integrate "Attracting Foreign Investment" with "Going Global" and participate in international economic cooperation in a more comprehensive way.
Since the start of this year, the Chinese economy has maintained a momentum of fairly rapid growth. In the first half of this year, China's GDP increased by 7.9 percent as compared to the same period of last year.
During the first seven months, the total social investment in fixed assets grew by 20.4 percent and the retail aggregate of social consumer goods rose by 9.8 percent. During the same period, State-owned and State-controlled industrial companies have accomplished a total profit of 90.5 billion yuan, increasing by 31. 5 percent; total trade value increased by 10.6 percent to 284.8 billion U.S. dollars; and the paid-in foreign capital increased by 21.68 percent to 24.2 billion U.S. dollars.
By the end of July 2001, China's national foreign exchange reserve amounted to 184.4 billion U.S. dollars.
China will become even more open in the 21st century. At present, China is enjoying political stability, economic progress and social harmony. Chinese people are happy about their lives and work.
Not long ago, Beijing succeeded in its bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games. This latest success, coupled with the imminent accession to the World Trade Organization, will add impetus to China's reform, opening-up and economic development.
We sincerely hope that business people with from all over the world will seize the historical opportunity to conduct investment and trade cooperation with their Chinese counterparts. Together we can create a brilliant future!
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