On March 24,2023, H.E. Lin Xianjiang, Chinese Ambassador to Dominica Published a signed article entitled "China's high-quality development provides new opportunities for the world" on the Chronicle Newspaper, introducing the recently concluded National "Two Sessions" and high-quality development.
Following is the full text of the article：
Not long ago, the first session of China's 14th National People's Congress (NPC) and the first session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) ended in Beijing. This year's National "Two Sessions" was the first National "Two Sessions" held after the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which involved the election of new state organs and the leadership of the National Committee of the CPPCC, the discussion and deliberation of various reports on the work of the government, the Standing Committee of the NPC, the Standing Committee of the CPPCC, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the draft amendment to the legislative law, the institutional reform plan of the State Council and other agendas. It is an important window for the world to understand the direction of China's next domestic and foreign policies.
Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed that high-quality development is the first and foremost task in building a modern socialist country in all respects while attending a deliberation with his fellow deputies from the delegation of Jiangsu Province at the first session of the 14th NPC, which aroused a warm response at home and abroad. How should we understand high-quality development? I would like to talk about my understanding from the following three aspects.
What is high-quality development? High-quality development is a shift from simply pursuing quantity and growth rate to focusing on quality and efficiency as the primary goal. Currently, China’s development is focused on providing for people’s basic needs. Going forward, the focus will be shifted toward delivering a life of better quality for the people. In particular, China will enhance the capacity for scientific and technological innovation, build a modern industrial system, and transition toward green development. At the same time, high-quality development is comprehensive development, which starts with high-quality economic development and gradually penetrates across the economic field and into various fields of social life. It is an inherent requirement for China's comprehensive development in various fields such as internal affairs, foreign affairs, national defense, governance of the party, state, military, political culture, and social ecology.
Why should China focus on promoting high-quality development? Development is the first priority of the CPC in governing and rejuvenating the country, and it is the key to solving all problems in China. In the past few decades, China has made great progress in economic and social development indeed. China is now the second largest economy in the world. That said, China’s development is still unbalanced and inadequate. Any aggregate volume, when divided by the 1.4 billion population, will become a small per capita figure.
How does China promote high-quality development? In general, it is necessary to fully and faithfully apply the new development philosophy of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development on all fronts, accelerate efforts to create a new pattern of development that is focused on the domestic economy and features positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows, remain steadfast in deepening reform and opening-up and deepen the transformation of development methods with great self-reliance and strength in science and technology, to pursue higher-quality growth and appropriately increase economic output and transform the achievements into quality of life to meet the ever-growing needs of the people for a better life.
In fact, since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Party Central Committee, with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, has all along applied the new development philosophy, focused on promoting high-quality development, promoted the creation of a new development paradigm, carried out supply-side structural reform, which led China's economy on the road to higher-quality, more efficient, fairer, more sustainable and safer development, achieving remarkable economic achievements. In 2022, China's GDP increased to 121 trillion yuan, registering an annual growth rate of 5.2 percent over the past five years. As spending on R&D increased to over 2.5 percent of GDP, the contribution of scientific and technological progress to economic growth exceeded 60 percent. The capacity of innovation to sustain development was enhanced continuously. The value-added of high-tech manufacturing and of equipment manufacturing increased by an annual average of 10.6 percent and 7.9 percent respectively over the past five years. China’s digital economy continued to grow in strength. The economic structure was further improved. By pursuing high-quality development, China has achieved a medium-high rate of economic growth given our large economic aggregate and transitioned to high-quality development. These bright transcripts fully demonstrate that China's economy has strong resilience, great potential, and sufficient vitality. The sound momentum of sustained and healthy economic development has not changed, and the fundamentals for long-term improvement have not changed. International organizations and investment institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and Morgan Stanley have raised their expectations for China's economic growth this year, precisely because of their confidence in the high-quality development of the China’s economy.
More importantly, China is moving faster to create a new development paradigm and adhering to improving the quality of development through promoting high-level opening-up, which is also injecting important momentum into the world economic development. In 2022, China’s total volume of trade in goods exceeded 40 trillion yuan, registering an annual growth rate of 8.6 percent over the past five years. It has thus been the top global trader for many years running. China is now both a major destination for foreign investment and a leading global outbound investor. Last year, China’s utilized foreign investment totaled over US$189 billion, which is again a record high, and almost US$50 billion higher than that of three years ago. In January 2023, China made a good start in attracting foreign capital, with the actual amount of foreign capital used reaching 127.69 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.5%. Many foreign-funded enterprises regard China as one of the most important investment destinations and plan to increase their investment in China. This demonstrates that China remains a popular destination for global investment.
The report on the work of the government, which has just been released, also sent a clear signal that China will continue to strive to promote high-quality development, deepen reform and opening-up in all aspects, strengthen the support of technological innovation for industrial development, intensify efforts to attract and utilize foreign investment, expand market access, align with high-standard of international economic and trade rules, and steadily expand institutional opening-up. At the press conference, the new Premier of the State Council, Li Qiang, clearly pointed out that opening-up is a basic state policy for China, and no matter how the external situation may evolve, China will stay firmly committed to pursuing this policy. China will only open itself wider to the world. China will provide a better environment and better services to all. With a vast and open market, China is sure to provide even greater business opportunities for foreign companies in China.
This year, China will continue to hold international exhibitions and conferences such as China International Import Expo, China Import and Export Fair, China International Consumer Products Expo, and the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Meeting, to share China's high-quality development achievements and development dividends with the world, and to provide new opportunities for the world with China's new development. Among them, the 2023 Annual Conference of the Boao Forum for Asia will be held in Hainan, China, from March 28 to 31. At that time, representatives from all walks of life, including political, commercial, academic, and media, will be invited to discuss the development plan of the post pandemic world and promote international solidarity and cooperation. My good friend, Dominica's Foreign Minister Vince Henderson, will also be invited to attend the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference.
Currently, visas of all categories issued by the Chinese side before 28 March 2020 and still within the validity period can be used for entry. At the same time, the Chinese Embassy in Dominica has also resumed reviewing and issuing various types of visas for foreigners to China, including tourist visas, on the basis of the Sino- Dominican mutual visa exemption agreement that officially entered into force last September. Here, I would like to invite Dominica friends to visit China. Whether it's for investment, business, work, study, or tourism and exchange, China will always open the door and warmly welcome your arrival.
Let us share the new opportunities brought by China's high-quality development to the world!