Xi Jinping’s Speech at the Opening Ceremony of the B20 Summit

Editor's note: The 2016 Business 20 Summit (B20) was being held in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province, on September 3-4. Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered the keynote speech at the summit's opening ceremony. An edited excerpt of which follows:

China's Progress

The great progress of China's reform and opening up is a process of exploration. What we have done is “crossing the river by feeling for stones.” We have deepened reform and opening up, broken new grounds, and forged ahead. We have established and developed Socialism with Chinese characteristics.

It is a process of action and hard work. We have succeeded in turning China into the world's second biggest economy, the biggest trader of goods, and the third largest direct overseas investor. We have lifted China's per-capita GDP to close to $8,000.

It is a process of common prosperity. Thanks to the reform and opening up, China has lifted over 700 million people out of poverty, and has significantly made life better for its 1.3 billion plus people. In pursuing development, we have accomplished, just in a few decades, what has taken other countries several hundred years to achieve.

It is a process of China and the world embracing each other. We have pursued an independent foreign policy of peace and a fundamental policy of opening up. We have developed in an open environment. We started by introducing large-scale overseas investment and then introduced “going global” with big strides. We have been actively involved in building a fairer and more equitable international order.

China's Contribution

We will steadfastly deepen reform in an all-round way and open up brighter prospects of development. China's economy has entered a new normal period, which is a stage that China cannot bypass if it is to upgrade its economy and make it better-structured.

We will pursue an innovation-driven development strategy to create stronger growth drivers. China now faces the challenging task of changing its growth drivers and growth model and adjusting its economic structure. To build an innovative country and become a leader in science and technology is what China must do in pursuing development.

We will promote green development to achieve better economic performance. We will unwaveringly pursue sustainable development and stay committed to green, low carbon and circular economic development and China's fundamental policy of conservation development and environmental protection. Starting from the beginning of 2016, we have vigorously advanced supply-side structural reform and taken the initiative to adjust the relationship between supply and demand.

We will promote equity and sharing our development outcomes to deliver more benefit to the people. We will work to continuously raise people's living standards and the quality of their lives. We will improve the public service system and enlarge the middle income group. In particular, we will provide stronger and more-targeted support to those living in difficulty. By 2020, the over-57-million poor rural population will all be lifted out of poverty, and poverty will be eliminated in all poor counties.

We will open up wider to achieve greater mutual benefit and win-win outcomes. We will continue to be fully involved in economic globalization. We will support the multilateral trading system. China's development has benefited from the international community, and China is ready to provide more public goods to the international community. The Belt and Road Initiative is to share China's development opportunities with countries along the routes and achieve common prosperity.