H.E. Mr. Zafar ul Hasan, Joint Chief Economist,Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives,
Dr. Liaquat Ali Shah, CPEC Center of Excellence,Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives,
Mr. Khalid Taimor, Director of Pakistan Research Center for a Community with Shared Future,
Mr. La Lianjie, President of Pakistan Overseas Chinese Association,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Assalamu alaikum！
It is my great pleasure to attend the “Global Opportunities in Deepening China’s Reform in the New Era” Conference. My sincere thanks to the Ministry of Planning of Pakistan and China Media Group for organizing this conference and your meticulous arrangements.
As we all know, from July 15th to 18th, the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was successfully convened, drawing worldwide attention. The most important outcome of the plenary was the Resolution of CPC Central Committee on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization. President Xi Jinping devised the whole framework, organized thorough surveys and studies and played a decisive role in drafting the Resolution, which includes more than 300 important reform measures with focus on enhancing and developing the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and promoting the modernization of the national governance system and capabilities. The Resolution fully demonstrates President Xi Jinping's great historical initiative, enormous political courage and strong sense of responsibility, providing new impetus and institutional guarantee for Chinese modernization.
As President Xi Jinping points out, reform and opening up are crucial to the cause of the CPC and the Chinese people, enabling us to catch up with the times in great strides and playing a critical role in Chinese modernization. Back to December 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held, ushering in a new period of reform, opening up, and socialist modernization. In November 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC was held, marking China’s stride into the journey of comprehensively deepening reform in the new era with systematic and holistic plans. In October 2022, the 20th National Congress of the CPC set up the grand goal of comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese modernization. At the crucial historical moment, the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC put forward new arrangements for further deepening comprehensive reforms, including building high-standard socialist market economy, promoting high-quality economic development, fostering the new-quality productive forces, and laying out the major reform measures in the next five years, which will definitely write a new chapter in Chinese modernization and create new miracles in the world.
Opening up is a defining feature of Chinese modernization. The plenary emphasizes that we will remain committed to the fundamental policy of opening up, continue to strengthen opening up through reform, leverage China’s enormous market, enhance our capacity for opening up while expanding international cooperation, and develop new institutions for an open economy with higher-standard. The Resolution also makes arrangements for high-level opening up, and we will make coordinated efforts to advance both major signature projects and “small but beautiful” public welfare projects, and will continue to jointly build the "Belt and Road" with high quality and turn China's big market into big opportunities for the world.
As a solid practitioner and beneficiary of reform and opening up, China is willing to reach out to the rest of the world and share development opportunities. According to the latest data of China's National Bureau of Statistics, China's gross domestic product (GDP) in the first half of 2024 reached 61.7 trillion RMB, with a year to year increase of 5.0% . International institutions like IMF and the World Bank have recently raised expectation of China's GDP growth and an increasing number of foreign enterprises are coming to invest in China. Through further comprehensively deepening reform and expanding opening up, China will join hands with other countries to move forward together and seek common development.
Ladies and gentlemen,
China is always willing to bring new opportunities to the world with new progress of Chinese modernization, and of course we hope to bring benefits first to our close neighbor and all-weather strategic cooperative partner Pakistan. H.E. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif paid a successful visit to China in June; the leaders of our two countries reached important consensus, which provides fundamental guidance for further developing China-Pakistan relations and deepening our practical cooperation in various fields. I would like to share that the Launching Ceremony of the 20,000 Health Kits Aid Project to Balochistan was held in the Chinese embassy the day before, which was the latest progress of implementing the two leaders’ consensus and a vivid example of benefiting grass-root Pakistani people. We stand ready to work with Pakistani side, to continue to implement the consensus of the leaders of our two countries, to build an upgraded version of CPEC together and accelerate the building of an even closer China-Pakistan Community with a Shared Future in the new era. Specifically speaking, in terms of practical cooperation, firstly we will keep working on the upgrade of ML-I and the KKH Ⅱ realignment project, and realize the all year-round function of the Khunjerab-Sost pass at an early date. Secondly, we will increase the export of Pakistani products including agricultural products to China, and take mining cooperation as the lead to enhance our industrial cooperation; Thirdly, we will expand our cooperation in terms of clean energy, IT, finance and even space cooperation. In this process, we need also strengthen counter-terrorism and security cooperation, providing safe environment and security guarantee for the development of China-Pakistan relations.
Ladies and gentlemen,
We firmly believe that under the guidance of consensus of our leaders, China and Pakistan will continue to enrich the vivid practice of building China-Pakistan community with a shared future and make further contributions to the peace and development of the region and even the world. We are also confident that under the guidance of the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee and under the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China with General Secretary Xi Jinping at its core, all Chinese people will continue to strive in unity to achieve greater progress of Chinese modernization, injecting more impetus into promotion of the common development and prosperity of mankind.
Last but not least, I wish the today’s conference full success.
Thank you!