President vows to keep domestic market open

President Xi Jinping reaffirmed on Friday China's pledge to enable various nations to share opportunities in its vast market, saying that Beijing will expedite steps to develop a robust domestic market, upgrade trade in goods and build new mechanisms for trade in services. Speaking via video link at the opening ceremony of the fifth China International Import Expo, Xi renewed China's pledge to widen its opening-up, including steps to import more quality products.

Xi highlighted the need to remain committed to openness to meet development challenges, foster synergy for cooperation, build innovation momentum and deliver benefits to all.

"We should steadily advance economic globalization, enhance every country's dynamism of growth, and provide all nations with greater and fairer access to the fruits of development," he said.

Xi announced plans to establish pilot zones for Silk Road e-commerce cooperation and build national demonstration zones for innovative development of trade in services.

China will steadily expand institutional opening-up with regard to rules, regulations, management and standards, he said.

"We will engage fully and deeply in WTO reform negotiations, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and enhance international macroeconomic policy coordination, with a view to jointly fostering new drivers for global growth," Xi added.

The president reaffirmed China's readiness to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement signed by 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region in 2018, and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, signed between Singapore, Chile and New Zealand in 2020.

The CIIE, to be held in Shanghai from Saturday to Thursday, will see participation from a total of 145 nations, regions and international organizations as well as enterprises from 127 countries and regions.

Kentaro Fujiwara, CEO of Shiseido China, said Xi's remarks showed "the confidence and responsibility of a more open China and demonstrate the honest efforts that China is making to open up".

"Through the expo, we are able to experience the connection between China and the global market, the mutual promotion of innovation and development, and the opportunities brought by greater inclusiveness and openness," he said.

Xiao Song, global executive vice-president of Siemens China, said Xi's speech conveyed "China's commitment to sharing, co-creation and win-win, and demonstrated China's confidence to create new opportunities for the world with its own development".

"Through CIIE, a platform of opening-up, China and the world share markets, co-create industrial prosperity and achieve win-win results for the future of an open world economy. With this, we have good expectations for the economic outlook of China and the world," he said.

Zhong Nan and Cheng Yu contributed to this story