Chinese President Xi Jinping said Monday that China's imported goods and services are estimated to exceed 30 trillion U.S. dollars and 10 trillion U.S. dollars respectively in the next 15 years.
Xi made the remarks when delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the first China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, which has attracted a total of 172 countries, regions and international organizations from five continents to showcase their development achievements.
At the CIIE, the world's first import-themed national-level expo, more than 3,600 companies from different countries are present, bringing more than 5,000 new products to over 400,000 purchasers from China and overseas.
Imported goods on the list of China's "big cake" of imports include high-end products, such as numerically-controlled machine tools, intelligent terminals, precision medical equipment, advanced vehicles and civil aircraft. Other imports are goods related to daily consumption, personal electronics, farm produce, food, wine, clothing, cosmetics and medicine.
Meanwhile, China is taking solid steps to advance opening-up in the service sector, expand financial opening-up and accelerate the opening-up process of sectors including telecommunications, education, medical treatment and culture.
As the world's second-largest economy, China has a market of more than 1.3 billion consumers with land covering over 9.6 million square kilometers. China's "big cake" of imports will "well serve their demand for upgraded consumption and the country's aspiration for high-quality development," said Gan Chunhui, vice president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
In addition, the large scale of imports is China's concrete action to promote an open world economy and support economic globalization, said Gan.
"All countries should be committed to opening-up and oppose protectionism and unilateralism with a clear-cut stance," Xi said at the CIIE opening ceremony.
During his meeting with representatives of foreign entrepreneurs at the CIIE, Xi said China has introduced a series of opening-up policies and will roll out more such policies, and hosting the CIIE is just one of them.
China will increase people's incomes and spending power, foster new growth areas of medium-high-end consumption, continue to unleash the potential of the domestic market, foster a world-class business environment, explore new horizons of opening-up, and promote international cooperation at multilateral and bilateral levels, said Xi.
Simon Peter Lwanjo, CEO of Uganda-based Preg-Tech Communication Ltd., said China's long list of imports offers opportunities for his company to attract potential business and partnership with China. "I feel it is the right time for China to do this. We believe it is an opportunity for us to see how we can work together to show this common prosperity to all people of the world."
"The CIIE is a platform that goes beyond China," said Stephen Badger, chairman of the Board of Directors at U.S. company Mars Inc, adding that it is a truly global event driving globalization and trade liberalization. Enditem
