Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech at the opening plenary of the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 17, 2017. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for joint efforts to chart the course of economic globalization and forge new models of global growth, cooperation, governance and development.[Special coverage]
Xi made the remarks while addressing the opening plenary of the 2017 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF). He is the first Chinese head of state to attend the Davos meetings in Switzerland.
Amid a rising tide of global concerns for protectionism, anti-globalization sentiment and other economic and political issues, Xi's presence with Chinese wisdom and experiences at Davos bears tremendous historic significance, said WEF founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab.
GUIDING GLOBAL ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE
In his keynote keynote speech, Xi stressed the importance of adapting to and guiding economic globalization and delivering its benefits to all.
Blaming economic globalization for the world's problems is inconsistent with reality and unhelpful to solving the problems, Xi said, underlining the need to act pro-actively and manage economic globalization appropriately, so as to release its positive impact and rebalance its process.
Xi called on all countries to follow the general trend, proceed from their respective national conditions, and embark on the right pathway of integrating into economic globalization with the right pace.
He stressed the need to strike a balance between efficiency and equity to ensure that different countries, different social strata and different groups of people all share the benefits of economic globalization.
"President Xi's remarks objectively elaborated the role of globalization in the entire process of human history and suggested that its role should be viewed dialectically," said Zhang Yuyan, director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"Trade protectionism, populism and nationalism can quell public dissatisfaction for the time being, but in the long run, they will harm the overall interests of all," Zhang said.
Analyzing the root causes of the sluggish global economy, Xi pointed to a lack of robust driving forces for global growth, inadequate global economic governance, and uneven global development.
He stressed the importance of developing a dynamic innovation-driven growth model, a model of open and win-win cooperation featuring a well-coordinated and inter-connected approach, and a model of fair and equitable governance in keeping with the trend of the times, and a balanced, equitable and inclusive development model.
Citing the contributing role his country -- the world's second largest economy -- has played in economic globalization, Xi said China's rapid growth has been a sustained, powerful engine for global economic stability and expansion, and the inter-connected development of China and a large number of other countries has made the world economy more balanced.
China's remarkable achievement in poverty reduction has contributed to more inclusive global growth, and its continuous progress in reform and opening-up has lent much momentum to an open world economy, he added.
