BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, delivered a speech at the Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Development and Opening-up of Pudong in Shanghai on Thursday.
On April 18, 1990, China announced the development and opening-up of Pudong. Thirty years on, Pudong has become not only China’s most iconic skyline but a symbol of the country’s link with the world.
The high-profile event came less than two weeks after the close of the fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee in Beijing.
During the four-day meeting (October 26-29), Chinese leaders charted the country’s economic course for the 2021-2025 period, the 14th Five-Year Plan period.
China will aim to achieve sustained and healthy economic development in the next five years, with a focus on higher quality growth, the meeting said.
China will implement a new development pattern where domestic and foreign markets can boost each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay.
It pledged to take new steps to deepen reform and opening-up and further improve fair competition system, so as to build a high-level open economy.
Shanghai has become a pioneer of China’s reform and opening-up.
In 2013, the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) was established. China first piloted the negative list in the Shanghai FTZ with 190 items that set out sectors off limits to foreign investors.
In 2018, China held the first China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, the world’s first import expo held at the national level.
Speaking via video message at the opening ceremony of the third CIIE last week, Xi said China will import over $22 trillion worth of goods over the next decade, and the country is accelerating its opening-up despite the pandemic.
Xi said China would reduce its catalog of restricted goods and technology imports, treat all companies registered in China equally and sign more high-quality trade agreements with other countries, highlighting China’s determination of opening-up.
–The Daily Mail-CGTN
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