Your Excellencies,

Dear Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

Good Afternoon. It is my great pleasure to participate in this Conference. Let me begin by congratulating the Hellenic Exporters Association for organizing the event and inviting me to company of so many distinguished guests. Today, I wish to share with you my perspective on the open policy of China and the opportunities for trade and investment this policy brings to the world and to China-Greece relations in particular.  

As economic globalization is moving ahead with accelerated pace, opportunities and challenges coexist for all countries. Working hand in hand towards a common future through win-win cooperation has become a shared aspiration of the world's people and a broad consensus of the international community.

 

Over the past 27 years, China has made world-acclaimed achievements of economic and social development. The process of China's opening up is one where China has been sharing profits and benefits with the rest of the world. Through two-way trade and investment, China is playing an increasingly important role in driving the world economy. For instance, last year China took up 10% of the growth of the world economy with its GDP accounting for about 4% of the world's total. It contributed 12% to the increase of the global trade with its external trade value taking up a 6% share in the world's total. Our objective is to prolong the momentum of our development and contribute to sustainable economic development worldwide.

 

Today, when we are striving for economic growth and a Win-for-All world, China's opening drive also ushers in a new phase. The word "new phase" embodies concrete meanings, which I'd like to elaborate:

 

First, China's opening has been lifted to a new level. China has been a supporter for and active participant in the multilateral trading regime. Since joining the WTO, China has strictly lived up to its commitments by improving and updating its laws and regulations and increasing its openness to the outside world. The overall tariff rate was brought down to less than 10%, all the non-tariff barriers have been eliminated, and the liberalization of all industries, especially the service industry, has been significantly enhanced. At present, 100 segments in the service sector have been opened, taking up 62.5% of all segments in the industry and only 5 percentages lower than that of the developed countries.

 

Second, China has enjoyed a huge and continually growing import demand. China has become the third largest importer globally and the largest in Asia. The Chinese market has become larger in scale and shows a continuous, upward trend. China's annual import volume increased from 10.9 billion US dollars in 1978 to 561.4 billion US dollars in 2004. It is expected to grow continuously and exceed 1 trillion US dollars by 2010. Such considerably and rapidly growing import promises a tremendous market potential. Housing, private car and domestic and outbound tourism have become the new highlights of consumption.

 

Third, China not only has skilled blue-collars, but will also have more white-collars. China used to compete on the advantage of inexpensive labor force. While this advantage is maintained, high-quality talents are growing as well. With more than 3 million university students graduating each year, the intellectuality of China's human resources and the popularization of foreign languages among them will also be improved.

 

Fourth, China's infrastructure is being bettered. At present, the total length of highways in China has reached 30 thousand kilometers. 72,000-kilometer railways have been put in operation, making China the No. 3 in the world of that for the railway system. Handling capacity of Chinese ports stands at 4.1 billion tons, ranking No. 1 globally. The number of telephone users is more than 650 million, marking the largest user community in the world; the number of Internet users is 94 million, the second largest globally. China is already equipped with bettered and smooth conditions to work with the rest of the world.

 

Fifth, foreign invested enterprises are no longer isolated islands in China. They have forged industrial chains covering the upstream and downstream stages, shaping crisscross and interlocking industrial networks by cooperating with circulation enterprises and financial companies. Mutual penetration has made foreign invested enterprises and Chinese ones interdependent on and interwoven with each other and search for cooperation and win-win in competition.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

 

I would like to emphasize that, for all its achievements, China remains the largest developing country in the world. Currently, China's GDP ranks high in the world in aggregate terms. However, with a population of 1.3 billion, it still ranks behind the 100th place in per capita terms. Many Greek friends who have been to such big cities as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou may be impressed by the enormous changes that have taken place in China in recent years. However, those who have been to China's west and the vast rural areas may be struck by the unevenness of China's development. China still faces many outstanding contradictions and problems in the course of its development. For example, about 26 million people in China's rural areas are still living in poverty, and 21 million urban residents are living on minimum subsistence allowances. Each year, about 24 million people need jobs. In a word, it will be a long and uphill journey before China attains the average economic level of developed countries. Promoting economic and social development and constantly raising the people's living standards will always be our central task.  

 

Keenly aware of the long journey ahead and the arduous efforts required of us, the Chinese people are working hard to build a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way. Hopefully, we will quadruple the 2000 GDP by 2020, reaching 4 trillion US dollars, with the per capita GDP of 3,000 US dollars. By then, our economy will be more developed, democracy more adequate, science and education more advanced, culture more thriving, society more harmonious, and the quality of life further upgraded. We will continue to guide overall economic and social development with a people-centered, scientific concept of comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development, stay focused on economic development, press ahead with reform and opening-up, coordinate development between urban and rural areas, between different regions, between social and economic undertakings, between man and nature, between domestic development and opening to the outside world, and promote all-round development in economic, political, cultural and social endeavors.

 

Ladies and gentlemen,

 

Pursuit of peace, development and cooperation represents a common aspiration of people around the world and irreversible tide of history. To achieve their individual goals of development, countries must move along with the general trend of the world. The purpose of China's foreign policy is to safeguard world peace and promote common development. We stand for democratic international relations and diverse development models, vigorously make economic globalization move in a direction that facilitates common prosperity, and promote the establishment of a just and rational new international political and economic order. China will always adhere to the road of peaceful, open and cooperative development. As its economy expands, China is bound to make even greater contribution to world economic growth. I am confident that, during this process, many countries in the world will benefit from developing partnerships with a more prosperous China.

 

Focusing on China-Greece relation, I would like to highlight the great importance our two governments attached to bilateral cooperation and the fruitful results achieved in many fields. Although our bilateral economic and trade cooperation is not on a very large scale for the time being, it has been expanding very fast in the past few years and there is huge potential for future development. We have excellent cooperation in shipping sector. A large portion of Chinese cargos is transported by Greek ships. Last year, we imported 110 million tons of crude oil, 80% of which was carried by foreign tankers and 80% of the 80% by Greek tankers. Every year, you send over 100 ships to China for repairing. About 10% of your fleet were built by China. Tourism has become new area of cooperation. Moreover, the first two Olympic Games of the 21st century hosted by Greece and China have brought our two countries closer to each other. Mutual interest and mutual benefit has ushered in a golden period of cooperation and generated more opportunities for China and Greece. I firmly believe that in today's world with peace and development as the main theme, so long as we increase mutual understanding, work hard together and explore aggressively the potential, the Greek people and the Chinese people will benefit from their ever closer bilateral ties and find for themselves huge business opportunities. And I am confident that China-Greece relations will surely score greater achievements.

 

Thank you.