-
1. Opening Ceremony Speech: Consolidate the Upward Momentum and Promote Sustained Growth
- The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
143 OPENING CEREMONY SPEECH CONSOLIDATE THE UPWARD MOMENTUM AND PROMOTE SUSTAINED GROWTH (13 September 2010, Tianjin) Professor Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me begin by extending congratulations on the opening of the fourth Annual Meeting of the New Champions, the Summer Davos, and a welcome to you all. At the crucial juncture when the world economy is slowly recovering, this meeting will explore the way forward for future development, which is based on the theme of “Driving Growth through Sustainability .” This is highly relevant and significant, and I wish the meeting full success! In the past two years, China has emerged as one of the first countries to achieve an economic rebound and to maintain steady and relatively rapid economic development under extremely difficult and complex circumstances. We owe our achievements to the comMeetingTheChallengesEN_FA02_17Dec2013 .indd 143 MeetingTheChallengesEN_FA02_17Dec2013.indd 143 19/12/13 11:26 AM 19/12/13 11:26 AM MEETING THE CHALLENGES 144 prehensive implementation of the stimulus package.1 At the height of the international financial crisis, China’s economic growth rate dropped by a large margin. Many enterprises partially or completely suspended operations, and some even closed down. Many workers lost their jobs and a large number of rural migrant workers had to return to their home villages.2 In view of this, we acted immediately to introduce a stimulus package. Beginning from the second quarter of 2009, the downward trend in economic growth was quickly reversed. The economy grew by 9.2 percent in 2009 and 11.2 percent in the first half of 2010. Urban employment has kept expanding, people’s income has been increasing, and social stability and harmony has been maintained . As a Chinese saying goes, “one can never fully understand a difficulty unless he has experienced it in person.” For a country like China with 1.3 billion people, without a certain rate of economic growth, full employment and the people’s well-being can only be empty talk. The stimulus package has enabled us not only to maintain current economic growth and social stability, but also, and more importantly , to secure the sound momentum of economic development. The severe external shock did not cause a big fluctuation in China’s modernization process. This is of major and far-reaching significance. In tackling the international financial crisis, we have always given top priority to transforming the economic development pattern and restructuring the economy. In the past two years, domestic demand, in particular consumption, has played an increasingly strong role in driving China’s economic growth. Total retail sales in 2009 rose by 16.9 percent in real terms, which was the fastest increase since 1986. This good momentum is continuing and retail sales in the first half of this year grew at roughly the same rate as the same period of last year. The upgrading of the industrial structure has been accelerated. In the first seven months of this year, the value-added of the high-tech indusMeetingTheChallengesEN_FA02_17Dec2013 .indd 144 MeetingTheChallengesEN_FA02_17Dec2013.indd 144 19/12/13 11:26 AM 19/12/13 11:26 AM [18.188.134.251] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 19:07 GMT) 2010 SUMMER DAVOS FORUM 145 tries increased by 17.7 percent year on year, 0.7 percentage points higher than that of industries above a designated level. Infrastructural development has been strengthened. On 1 August 2008, the BeijingTianjin Intercity Railway, China’s first top-class high-speed rail with full intellectual property, was put into operation, shortening the travel time between Beijing and Tianjin to only 30 minutes and binding the two major municipalities as one.3 The Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway that went into operation on 26 December 2009 set the world record for the longest and fastest high-speed railway completed on an uninterrupted basis.4 Solid progress has been made in energy conservation , emissions reductions, and environmental protection. Last year, we shut down small thermal power plants with a total capacity of 26.17 million kilowatts and phased out the inefficient production capacity of 16.91 million tons of steel, 21.13 million tons of iron, and 74.16 million tons of cement. By the end of this month, we will have eliminated additional inefficient production capacity including 8.25 million tons of steel, 30 million tons of iron and 91.55 million tons of cement. Energy consumption per unit of GDP has been reduced by 15.6 percent in...