Economic Forum

- Politician Guest delivered speeches at the Opening Ceremony
- Parallel Session on Trade and Opening
- Parallel Session on Trade and Innovation
- Parallel Session on Trade and Investment
Jim Yong KimPresident of the World Bank
In a speech of Davos in 2017, President Xi talked about another kind of ocean, other than the one he described today -- the ocean that is China. And he said, and I quote this all the time, “whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean that you cannot escape from. Any attempt to cut off the flow of capital technology, products, industries, and people, between economies, and channel the waters in the ocean back into isolated lakes and creeks, is simply not possible”.
I hope that the discussions at this milestone, China International Import Expo, will bring new ideas and avenues, just like the ones we saw in Guizhou, to make the global market system work for everyone and the planet, help end extreme poverty, and ensure equality of opportunity for everyone in the world.
Christine LagardePresident of the IMF
I was reminded of the talent of China to build bridges. Let me mention three of them
Bridge number one. Forty years ago, China started to build its bridge to the world by opening its economy and kickstarting reforms that have changed the lives and prospect of hundreds of millions of people here, but also beyond China.
Bridge number two. China is building a bridge to prosperity by rebalancing its economy towards consumption-led growth as opposed to export and investment-led growth.
Bridge number three. China is building a bridge to the future by harnessing the power of international cooperation, especially in trade. On behalf of the International Monetary Fund, I have called all parties to deescalate and dissolve the current trade disputes and to fix the global trade system not destroy it.
AzevêdoDirector-General of the World Trade Organization
And I think the expo also sends another very important and welcome message, and that is about the importance of imports. It reminds us of the essential truth that trade is not a zero-sum game where exports are good, and imports are bad.
Nguyen Xuan PhucPrime Minister of Vietnam
In the current context of globalization and international integration, no one country is able to grow on its own without participating in the integration process, aimed towards common developmental value of man-kind.
MedvedevPrime Minister of Russia
We will continue to develop our cooperation with China consistently, as well as with our partners around the globe. I am convinced that this first China International Import Expo, will provide a major boost for the development of business, as well as for the prosperity of our people.
Imran KhanPrime Minister of Pakistan
At a time when the international trade system is under attack, when unilateral commercial benefits are being sought aggressively by some, when protectionism is on the rise, we take great comfort in President Xi’s courageous statement. And I quote, “The doors of China's opening up will never shut, but will only open ever wider”.
Viktor OrbánPrime Minister of Hungarian
Hungary has always been a supporter of the most possibly free and fair global trade network, and we have always been supporters of the Euro Asian cooperation.
Dear Mr. President, to conclude, I would like to underline that you can count on our regions support, when it comes to your initiatives to promote free and fair international trade, when it comes to enhancing Euro Asian Cooperation, under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, and when it comes to pay more attention to Central Europe.
Mostafa MadboulyPrime Minister of Egypt
Let me stress here that our two business communities are playing an important role in our economic cooperation. Without the participation of our business communities, we cannot realize the vista of cooperation between us.
KenyattaPresident of Kenya
I thank Your Excellency, for your commitment to economic cooperation and readiness to open up your market to the rest of the world. This aligns well with the vision of shared prosperity.
This expo is a fitting launch pad for growing trade cooperation between China and Africa. It is an important signal to the world, that China remains open for business despite the growing wave of trade protectionism.
Danilo MedinaPresident of the Dominican Republic
Today, China has become a benchmark of open exchange, cooperation and connectivity among nations. This is evidence by the process of reform and opening up, which is now 4 decades old, and the important Belt and Road Initiative.
Likewise, we understand that for all participating countries, it is a great opportunity to be present in this space, which allows us not only to approach the great Asian giant, but also to exchange experiences, launch strategic partnerships, and explore models of cooperation to integrate ourselves successfully with this market.
Trade, is and must always be seen as a win-win opportunity. Thank you very much, therefore, for inviting us to participate in this enriching experience, I can assure you that our door is open and our hands outstretched not only to do business but also to create lasting partnerships that benefits us all.
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Jean-Paul AGON
Chairman and CEO, L’Oréal
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Richard BALDWIN
Professor, International Economics, Graduate Institute, Geneva
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John DENTON
Secretary General, International Chamber of Commerce
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William DING
Chairman and CEO, NetEase Inc.
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Victor K. FUNG
Group Chairman, Fung Group
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Mats KARLSSON
Senior Researcher
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Terry GOU
Founder and CEO, Foxconn Technology Group
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LI Jianhong
Chairman, China Merchants Group
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LONG Guoqiang
Senior Research Fellow, Vice President, Development Research Center of the State Council, PRC
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TIAN Wei
Anchor, China Global Television Network (CGTN)
Mr. Mats KarlssonSenior Researcher of Sweden
Openness has gone into the lifeblood of many of us, Chinese or China’s partners, corporations or public or independent institutions.
Mr. Mats KarlssonSenior Researcher of Sweden
Openness has gone into the lifeblood of many of us, Chinese or China’s partners, corporations or public or independent institutions.
Mr. Li YongDirector General of UNIDO
At UNIDO, we will continue to support our member states in their trade and investment-related challenges and I invite all stakeholders present here today to join us. Your knowledge, your experience, your technology and creativity, and your openness and the conducive business environment will be essential for the countries to harness the benefits of the inclusive and sustainable development.
Mukhisa KituyiSecretary-General of UNCTAD
The miracle of the past forty years of China's opening up, rising from an insignificant player to the second largest economy, the largest exporting nation, the second largest importing nation in the world, is a sufficient and ample evidence of the power of trade, and not just in growing national wealth, and the fact that it liberated eight hundred million people out of extreme poverty is a statement of a direction and model of development.
It has been twenty years since then. In these twenty years, China has demonstrated phenomenal capacity to grow a capitalist economy, play by capitalist rules but communism survived and even became stronger.
Mr.KubivFirst Vice Prime Minister and Trade Minister of Ukraine
I agree with the words of wisdom of Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher: “A towering tree grows up from a little sapling; A nine-storey building starts from piles of clay.” In order to promote the Ukraine-China friendship, we shall lay a solid foundation for bilateral relations.
China’s initiatives, such as the first China International Import Expo and the “Belt and Road Initiative”, are an attempt to unite diverse Asian countries, aiming to bring Asia closer to Europe and other countries in the world.
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Bill GATES
Chairman of the Board, Terra Power, LLC
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Christoph FRANZ
Chairman, Roche Group
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Angel GURRÍA
Secretary-General, OECD
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LI Yong
Director General, UNIDO
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Justin Yifu LIN
Dean, Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University
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Jack Yun MA
Executive Chairman, Alibaba Group
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Rebecca Fatima Sta. MARIA
Senior Policy Fellow, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia
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NING Gaoning
Chairman of the Board, Sinochem Group
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Eric RONDOLAT
CEO and Chairman of the Board of Management, Signify (Philips Lighting)
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Fumio TATEISHI
Chairman of the Board, OMRON Corporation
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XU Lirong
Chairman of the Board, China COSCO SHIPPING Corporation Limited
Bill GatesChairman of TerraPower
I'm always happy to be back in China and think back to my first visit nearly 25 years ago. In those 25 years, China has experienced a remarkable evolution. The expo is just one example of China's role as a global leader. It shows that opening up the Chinese market can bring huge development space to the global economy.
Whether it’s energy health or other areas, I hope that this kind of innovation will provide a model for more international cooperation in the future. Taking the talents, not only of China and the United States but other countries we can build an atmosphere of innovation that improves lives all over the world.
Angel GurriaSecretary-General of OECD
We've seen over the last ten years, despite the many breakthroughs in innovation (including digital technology), aggregate productivity growth has actually slowed down. OECD’s Future of Productivity Report and subsequent analysis examined this trend and found a widening gap between the more productive leading firms and the less productive rest of the firms. This suggests that the main source of the productivity slowdown, is not so much a slowing of innovation by the most globally advance firms, but rather an uneven uptake, an uneven diffusion of innovations, throughout our economies.
Of course, history suggests that the uptake of new technology takes time, but countries need to nurture a dynamic business environment, where firms can take risks and either succeed and grow or fail and exit, hopefully, smoothly and fast. Many countries have recently experienced a decline in business dynamism, as reflected by slower start-up rates, or slower job reallocation rates. The so-called churn is slowing down, and this is occurring across digital but also non-digital sectors alike.
So, we must maintain a global mindset, strive for openness and support multilateral cooperation, to boost innovation, increase trade integration and harness the digital transformation for growth and well-being.
Carrie LamChief Executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Leveraging on Hong Kong's unique strengths, under “One Country, Two Systems”, while emphasizing on complementarity of the cities, Hong Kong is destined to play an important role in the Bay Area's rise, as Asia's Silicon Valley.
Luigi Di Maio DeputyPrime Minister of Italy
The transformation of new digital technologies, especially the development of artificial intelligence and automation, has brought tremendous changes to enterprises and the labor market.. The transformation includes two aspects: companies need to innovate and at the same time, workers must improve themselves.
At the same time, we formulate new measures to protect the rights of our citizens
First, we need to overcome the digital divide.
Big data actually works for everyone
Narrowing the digital divide means more information, and more information means better and higher quality services will be provided for our people.
This is my second visit to China, and I have witnessed with my own eyes the important economic, social and cultural transformation in China. We, the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, have also set up Task Force China to face the challenges of development together with China. “The Belt and Road Initiative” has also provided a good opportunity to speed up this process.
Askar ZhumagaliyevVice Prime Minister of Kazakhstan
Ensuring food security is a pressing issue all over the world
Equally important is the development of infrastructure
“The New Silk Road Economic Belt Initiative” was first proposed by Xi Jinping, President of the people's Republic of China during his visit to the Nazarbayev University in Astana in September 2013. In the same year, Nazarbayev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan launched the “Bright Road” infrastructure development program, which focuses on the development of transportation infrastructure to help improve international trade
Joseph Muscat PrimeMinister of Malta
While the digital age has seen the birth of new tech giants and unicorns, it has more importantly opened the doors of the world to millions of small, even micro enterprises.
Similarly, in a marketplace which has become less dependent on the choice of location, thanks to technology. Smaller countries have found more space to operate in, with nimbleness being the main driver of their competitiveness.
AI poses great challenges, and they should not be forced or soiled to one corporation, one country, or one continent alone. I like to think that such a major change for humankind should be governed by institution that transcends national barriers
Andrej PlenkovićPrime Minister of Croatia
All innovation has given rise to an increasingly open and interconnected world that ultimately reaches the level of globalization we face today.
There are many opportunities ahead of us within the framework of “The Belt and Road Initiative”, especially in its China +16 format.
The overarching theme of our cooperation is connectivity, which is intrinsically linked with, and reinforced by trade and innovation.
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Yousef Abdullah AL-BENYAN
Vice Chairman and CEO, SABIC
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Arancha GONZÁLEZ
Executive Director, International Trade Centre
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Jim HACKETT
President and CEO, Ford Motor Company
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Mukhisa KITUYI
Secretary-General, UNCTAD
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LEI Jun
Founder,Chairman and CEO, Xiaomi Inc
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Jun LYU
Chairman of the Board, COFCO Corporation
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Jeffrey J. SCHOTT
Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics
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Mark E TUCKER
Group Chairman, HSBC Holdings plc
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ZHU Min
Chairman, National Institution of Financial Research, Tsinghua University
Nodir OtajonovDeputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan
We will actively promote advanced technologies and develop the global information and communication space, rapidly and steadily change the world's development process, and promote the development of new cooperation models at the continents, regions, countries and business levels. Practice has proved that these previous models are low efficient. And therefore, we must focus on constructive and pragmatic cooperation.
“The Silk Road Economic Belt Initiative” put forward by Chinese leaders is of great significance. We were among the first countries to support this initiative and have made our own contributions.
Somkid Jatusripitak’Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand
Today's forum is very meaningful because besides being an opportunity for business investors and policy makers to exchange ideas on the direction of trade and economic development, today's event also has two important aspects. One, symbolic aspect. Two, strategic aspect.
Firstly, the symbolic importance is not only for China or Asia, but also for the international community. I say this because our geo-economic condition is edging closer towards uncertainties.
We have seen that China is determined to create a balance amidst global challenges caused by turbulence. This is even more evident with President Xi Jinping’s announcement of “The Belt and Road Initiative” which has met success by leap and bounds. Every project under this initiative has made a lot of success. CIIE is a global event with international interests and it is also a tangible outcome of “The Belt and Road” Forum in 2017
Mr. Kris PeetersDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Employment of Belgium
I, therefore, welcome the intention that China has displayed by making imports the central theme of this CIIE.
In this context, I hope that the ongoing negotiations between EU and China, on the comprehensive agreement on investment, will come to a successful conclusion soon. It will certainly lead to even stronger trade and investment ties between our two nations.
Mr. Mamuka BakhtadzePrime Minister of Georgia
We believe CIIE will serve as a powerful tool for trade facilitation which will automatically result in an increased global trade.
Dalia GrybauskaitėPresident of Lithuania
Today, we gather in Shanghai for a common goal. We are ready to promote dialogue and cooperation among different continents, countries and enterprises.
We share a common belief that greater economic openness is the key to generating economic vitality, creating job opportunities and reducing poverty.
We firmly believe that true openness to trade and investment is indispensable for global growth. Let us work together to protect and expand the open global economy.