Referring to the proposal on China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), Xi said China will step up reform and innovation, accelerate the shift of growth model and economic restructuring, address the difficult issues in development, cultivate new drivers and new edges for development, and create more fresh opportunities for development.
Xi said China will pay more attention to efficiency and quality, innovation, equity and justice, green development, and opening to the outside world.
"China's economic reform will have huge positive impact on China and on the Asia-Pacific region to ensure sustainable, long-term and equitable economic growth," Flores said, adding that China's stability and progress is a strong foundation for Asia-Pacific economic development.
The view of Flores is shared by Chito Romana, a veteran journalist who have lived and worked in China for more than three decades.
"If China can maintain relatively high economic growth, it will benefit Asia-Pacific regional economy and even global economy," Romana said. "Everybody wishes China well."
"If China were to slow down and miss the target, the Southeast Asian countries will suffer, because the regional assembly network has connected all the countries, and inter-country trade is so strong in this region," Romana added.
"China's transition from a labor-intensive manufacturing powerhouse to a consumption-based innovative economy means less carbon footprint, which is good for climate change mitigation, gradual relocation of many manufacturing sites to neighboring ASEAN and South Asian countries, and emergence of world-class Chinese companies that can provide all sorts of high-end services and technologies," said Richard Javad Heydarian, assistant professor of political science at the Manila-based De La Salle University.
"China will increasingly transform into a consumer market and source of innovation for Asia and beyond," Heydarian said.
"While pushing for a more proactive strategy of opening up, we will build a new system of open economy with an even higher level of openness," said the Chinese president.
Xi pledged that China will accelerate efforts to build high-standard free-trade agreements (FTAs).
The negotiations for upgrading the China-ASEAN FTA are almost completed, and will soon produce positive results, Xi said.
Meanwhile, the China-Australia FTA and the China-South Korea FTA are both expected to come into force by the end of this year, giving a fresh boost to economic growth.
"China will also work with relevant parties to finish at an early date negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) while accelerating talks on a China-Japan-South Korea FTA," Xi said. The RCEP is a free trade pact involving the ten-member ASEAN and six other countries, including China.
Xi reiterated that China's policy on welcoming foreign investment will not change. "China's door to the outside world will forever stay open."
On the Belt and Road Initiative, Xi said China is committed to open regionalism and has signed deals with many countries in and beyond the region to harmonize their policies and development strategies.
"Through implementing the Belt and Road Initiative, we will go for even broader, deeper and more sophisticated cooperation at the regional level, and jointly foster a regional framework of open, inclusive, balanced and mutually beneficial cooperation," said the Chinese leader.
