New institutions facilitate high-level opening – Opinion

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, a key year for achieving the goals set out in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025). Chinese policymakers are making greater efforts to support a new development pattern, promote high-quality development, and further deepen reform and opening up.

China’s plan to further open up in the new era is part of the country’s comprehensive reform, as outlined in the resolution of the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in July. The resolution stated that China will further deepen reform comprehensively to accelerate China’s modernization and promote high-level opening-up. It also said that leveraging the strength of its vast market, China will deepen cooperation with other countries, steadily expand institutional opening-up, further reform the structure of foreign trade, improve the planning of regional opening-up, and refine the mechanisms of high-quality cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

China aims to build a high-quality socialist market economy in which the market plays a decisive role in resource allocation and the government acts as a supervisor and intervenes in the market only when necessary. It will also strive for self-sufficiency in science and technology, quickly establish a new development paradigm, and pursue high-quality development.

The world economy is facing serious challenges, including a weak recovery and a complex and unpredictable geopolitical landscape. As a result, international capital is increasingly seeking security and risk protection. Therefore, China, in addition to promoting its own development, has pledged to accelerate its opening up, creating more development opportunities for the rest of the world and better protecting the rights and interests of foreign investors. China will also further open up its markets for goods, services, capital and labor.

China’s foreign trade is facing pressure from the restructuring of global value chains, making its efforts to liberalize trade and facilitate investment increasingly important amid the growing trend of trade protectionism and the “decoupling” and “cutting off of industries and supply chains” in some economies.

As emphasized in the resolution, China will align its domestic economic and trade regulations with international standards, including harmonizing regulations and standards in sectors such as property rights protection, industrial subsidies, environmental standards, labor protection, government procurement, e-commerce and finance.

Entering a new era of green and innovation-driven development, the country has transformed from a huge consumer market and low-cost manufacturing hub to a key regional export base, innovation hub and a key link in global supply chains. For example, the total export volume of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and photovoltaic panels, known as the “new three items,” reached 1.06 trillion yuan ($146.39 billion) last year, up 29.9 percent year-on-year. And exports of industrial robots jumped 86.4 percent year-on-year.

With the world’s shift to low-carbon development, the demand for environmentally friendly and sustainable products has increased rapidly, and the “new three products” have become very desirable in the global market. China is a leading producer, consumer and exporter of these products, as the Chinese government and companies have invested heavily in these sectors, especially in research and development.

The World Customs Organization has called on economies to join the Authorized Economic Operator program to enhance the security of global supply chains and facilitate the free flow of legal goods in global markets. Customs officials from different countries and regions have pledged to work together to reduce the barriers of complex customs procedures and increase the efficiency of global trade.

By the end of June, China had signed AEO mutual recognition agreements with 28 economies, including the European Union and South Africa. It will sign more such agreements with more economies to strengthen trade both domestically and globally.

The rapid growth of e-commerce has helped transform China’s foreign trade. China now has the largest online shopper population in the world, more than the United States, Britain and Australia combined.

However, countries around the world need to implement targeted policies to facilitate the green and digital transformation of economies, better secure global trade, and ensure food and energy security. China remains committed to extending its high standard of openness and sharing development opportunities with the rest of the world.

The Chinese supreme leader stressed the importance of further deepening reforms to build a modern socialist country in all respects and realize the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Emphasizing that the ultimate goal of promoting reforms and pursuing high-quality development is to meet the people’s needs for a better life, the supreme leader said that reform measures must take into account the overall, fundamental and long-term interests of the people, including creating more new jobs, increasing people’s incomes, improving the education, health and housing sectors, and upgrading child and elderly care services.

Despite the global headwinds, China continues to attract huge amounts of foreign direct investment. According to the recently released Kearney FDI Confidence Index 2024, which reflects investors’ expectations for foreign direct investment in the next three years, China’s position in the world ranking has risen from seventh to third place. While China’s efforts to expand openness and free trade have yielded positive results, the Belt and Road Initiative has three-quarters of the world’s countries as partner economies, which has significantly increased global trade and investment. Nevertheless, China will continue to lead efforts to increase global trade and investment while pursuing high-quality development at home.

The author is a professor and PhD supervisor in international economics and trade at the School of Economics, Peking University.

These views do not necessarily reflect the views of China Daily.

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