China's signal of innovation detected in Davos

In the first rays of the morning sun, a trolly bus runs through the busiest Bahnhofstrasse Street here carrying on its side a full-sized eye-catching advert of Huawei Technologies, a China's telecom equipment giant.[Special coverage]

As a major partner of Swiss Telecom and a provider of networking service to local people, Huawei's growth and expansion in Switzerland is an epitome of China's influence in the global economic arena.

At Davos, a small Swiss town located 150 km away from Zurich, China's global economic influence was further illustrated in late January when the World Economic Forum (WEF) kicked off in the ski resort.

Led by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, an 80-plus-strong Chinese delegation comprising high-ranking government officials, business elites and prominent academicians drew unparalleled attention, as shown in a Reuters report entitled "China's Li to headline Davos in year of destiny."

In a keynote speech at the WEF annual meeting, Li shared his views on the development of the global economy and elaborated on China's economic situation and measures to comprehensively deepen reforms.

Bloomberg seemed to get what is behind the high-profile presence by subtitling Alibaba and Huawei in its Davos special report.

Supporting Li's remarks "will be the faces of China's new economy -- executives like Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. and Ren Zhengfei, president of Huawei Technologies Co.-- who are also attending the World Economic Forum," said the U.S.-headquartered news agency.

Last November, Li attended the first world Internet conference in Hangzhou, capital city of east China's Zhejiang Province, and met there participants at home and abroad including Ma, while in January Li paid a visit to Huawei during a three-day tour of south China's Guangdong Province.

For the Chinese economy to maintain medium-to-high speed of growth and achieve medium-to-high level of development, Li said at the forum, China should properly use the hand of the government and the hand of the market, and give full scope to both the traditional and new engines of growth.

"To foster a new engine of growth," Li said, "we need to encourage mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and mobilize the wisdom and power of the people."

Alibaba and Huawei are exactly the best examples of Chinese enterprises in pursuit of innovative development.

Two months ago, Li visited Qingyanliu Village, Yiwu City, in Zhejiang Province and he mentioned again the China No.1 E-commerce village, also known as the Taobao village, in his Davos remarks.

"In the village were some 700 households and over 2,800 registered online stores. Each day, more than 30 million items of various sorts were sold to different parts of the world," Li said. "The story of the village speaks vividly of the hard-working Chinese people actively engaged in entrepreneurship."

In an interview with Xinhua, Jack Ma expounded on Alibaba's e-commerce project in rural areas and said "it would be an honor for Alibaba if we could help rural residents become richer and help rural economy and agricultural industry grow better with internet technologies."

As far as high-tech enterprises like Huawei is concerned, innovation is nothing but its lifeline.

One week before its CEO's arrival at Davos, Huawei released its annual performance report for 2014. It showed the company achieved a 20-percent increase in its global sales revenue in 2014, which is estimated to be 289 billion yuan (about 46.5 billion US dollars).

Speaking at the WEF, Huawei's helmsman Ren Zhengfei said he believed that the Chinese economy should pursue high-quality growth in the future and agreements are also reached inside Huawei on a growth route away from low price and low quality. "Otherwise the country's strategic competitiveness would be ruined in 20 years," he said.

To sustain high-quality development, the key lies in innovation.

In a bid to build a competitive advantage, the Chinese tech giant has maintained a policy of "future-oriented investment." According to its latest annual report, it allocated about 40 billion yuan (about 6.44 billion dollars) in fund for R&D in 2014 alone, up 28 percent year-on-year and its accumulated funding for R&D in the last decade totaled 188 billion yuan (about 30.3 billion dollars).

"China has 1.3 billion people, a 900-million workforce, and over 70 million enterprises and self-employed businesses. Our people are hard-working and talented. If we could activate every cell in society, the economy of China as a whole will brim with more vigor and gather stronger power for growth," said Li Keqiang in his much-highlighted speech at Davos.

The Chinese premier also compared mass entrepreneurship and innovation to a "gold mine" that provides constant source of creativity and wealth.

These aspiring Chinese enterprises, as shining as gold, have huge potentials and will be a major force in bringing about a more rosy future for the Chinese economy.