Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan said in Davos on Wednesday that western multinational corporations and financial institutions are the main drivers of economic globalization.
"As they seek maximum profit in their operations, they allocate resources to countries and regions with low cost of production factors and sound business environment when building global industrial chains," said Wang when addressing the 2019 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
Wang said the economic globalization, which gained rapid ground in the last century, was started by Western developed countries, or the Mediterranean civilization.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, technological advances have significantly reduced the geographical distance and other barriers to exchanges among countries and accelerated the economic globalization process, he noted.
"Emerging economies have risen," he said. "As a result, economic globalization has reached a new stage as we now know."
In this process, said the vice president, China has moved up from the low end to the medium and high end of the global industrial chain.
The nearly 1.4 billion Chinese who are enjoying greater prosperity have unleashed huge demand backed by purchasing power, he said. "And this has unlocked enormous market potential that no one can afford to ignore."
World leaders and business elites gathered at the forum in Davos, Switzerland, scheduled for Tuesday to Friday, under the theme "Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution."
