Wei Jianguo: China will bring more surprises and development opportunities to the global economy

In the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China has successfully transferred itself from a closed economy to a semi-closed economy and now to a comprehensive open economy, and significant achievement has been made in China’s economy. Wei Jianguo, Vice Chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), said in an interview that the Chinese economy is on the path of rapid development and will bring more surprises and development opportunities to the global economy.

As a witness of China’s reform and opening up, Wei Jianguo said that the reform and opening up has completely changed the destiny of China because the opening up forced China governments and companies at all levels to undertake reform, which is a vital reason why China has managed to become the second largest economy in the world.

Wei Jianguo believes that during the entire process of reform and opening up, foreign-funded enterprises are both indispensable contributors and beneficiaries of China’s dividend-sharing. “According to the data of the American Chamber of Commerce and the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, many U.S. and European companies in China are making profits and they are willing to invest more”, said Wei Jianguo. Furthermore, China’s neighboring countries such as Japan and South Korea hope to accelerate the negotiations on the China-Japan-South Korea FTA as China continues to expand its reform and opening up.

When talking about the current environment for foreign investment in China, Wei Jianguo pointed out that foreign investors have a higher expectation of China’s investment environment. On the one hand, foreign businessmen increasingly value the predictability of the entire business environment: will the policies change in the near future? Are they transparent? Will the feedback from foreign investors be accepted? These long-term factors are very important for foreign investors. On the other hand, foreign investors also attach more importance to fairness. Of course, China is also committed to create an investment environment with equal rights, rules, and opportunities.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative. Wei Jianguo said that the Belt and Road is a significant step in China’s reform and opening up, which will help the world pay more attention to China’s voice, model and path. At present, the Belt and Road has been linked to the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, Mongolia’s “Prairie Road”, and Southeast Asia’s “Two Corridors and One Ring”, all these will bring great opportunities to foreign investors.

He said that the Belt and Road initiative has been welcomed and praised by more and more countries, who believe that this is not only a road for China’s development but also a development path for them. All countries will work together to build a community with a shared future for mankind through the Belt and Road.

With a growth rate of 6.9%, China’s total economic output exceeded 82 trillion yuan last year and this year China’s economic trend is still the focus of global attention. In this regard, Wei Jianguo said that China’s economy is on the track of rapid economic development. Through the supply-side structural reform and the economic achievement made in the earlier period, China has the ability to drive the recovery and development of the global economy, and the quality of China’s economic development will also affect the quality of global economic development.

More importantly, China is an innovative country. On the basis of the mass entrepreneurship and innovation program, we have made breakthroughs in manufacturing and service industries. For example, the cross-border e-commerce and sharing bicycles have demonstrated China’s creativity and innovation to the rest of world. Wei Jianguo emphasized that in the next five years, the Chinese economy will show a steady, high-speed, healthy and high-quality development, which will bring more surprises and more development opportunities to the rest of the world.