Xi Jinping's speech at 9th China-ASEAN Expo(Full text)(2)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Since the founding of the People' s Republic of China over 60 years ago, and particularly since the country introduced the reform and opening-up program over 30 years ago, China has indeed made remarkable progress in its modernization drive. Nevertheless, China's international status as the world's largest developing country, China's independent foreign policy of peace, and China's basic state policy of peaceful development and opening to the outside world all remain unchanged.

The more progress China makes in development and the closer its links with the region and the world, the more important it is for the country to have a stable regional environment and a peaceful international environment. Having gone through numerous vicissitudes in modern times, we are deeply aware of the importance of development and the preciousness of peace. We will be all the more determined to go for peaceful development, follow the win-win strategy of opening-up, and implement the policy of building friendship and partnerships with neighboring countries. China will always be a staunch force for peace and stability in the region and the world at large. We are firm in safeguarding China's sovereignty, security and territorial integrity and are committed to resolving difference with neighbors concerning territorial land, territorial sea and maritime rights and interests peacefully through friendly negotiations. We will never seek hegemony, nor behave in a hegemonic manner. By peaceful development, we mean to develop ourselves by upholding world peace and to uphold world peace through our own development.

The current economic situation in China is generally sound. We have full confidence in our ability to speed up the shift of growth model, stabilize external demand, expand domestic demand and build a society of higher level initial prosperity in an all-round way that benefits the over one billion people. China's development is peaceful, open, cooperative and win-win-oriented. In the second decade of this century, China will develop an open economy in an all-round way by deepening trade and economic cooperation with developed countries, strengthening mutually-beneficial cooperation with developing countries, and expanding results-oriented cooperation with neighboring countries. China will step up the improvement of the opening pattern for its regions by deepening openness of its coastal areas, accelerating openness of its inland and border areas, and seeking common development with neighboring countries. Facts have, and will continue to show, that China's sustained development and prosperity offer an important and lasting window of opportunities to its neighbors, and promise important development opportunities to countries around the world, ASEAN countries included.

At present, global economic growth remains sluggish with the European debt crisis continuing unabated and uncertainties and destabilizing factors existing side by side. Despite many difficulties and challenges, Asia has on the whole maintained the momentum of a fairly rapid growth. As friendly and close neighbors and strategic partners, China and ASEAN need to size up the situation and work together to deepen cooperation for sustained development. To this end, I wish to make a four-point proposal:

First, work more vigorously to improve on the FTA development. It has just been less than three years since the launch of the China-ASEAN FTA. This arrangement, covering 1.9 billion people, has laid a solid foundation for ASEAN-centered regional integration and cooperation. We hope that the two sides will continue to implement the various FTA agreements, further improve on trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and optimize the mix of import and export commodities, so as to meet, as scheduled, the trade volume target of 500 billion U.S. dollars by 2015. We should take the current China-ASEAN science and technology cooperation year as the opportunity to strengthen economic and technological cooperation within the FTA framework, promote policy awareness and capacity building, and raise the use rate of preferential policies. We should deepen industrial cooperation and improve intra-regional allocation of resources. We should expand the FTA coverage by acting in a spirit of openness, inclusion, equality and mutual benefit. China has already set up in Nanning, Guangxi and Yiwu, Zhejiang China-ASEAN commodity trade centers, which are new platforms that ASEAN companies can use to promote their products and increase their share in the Chinese market.

Second, work more vigorously to deepen cooperation in two-way investment. In the second decade of this century, China will continue to combine "bringing in" and "going global," guide its enterprises to make overseas investments in an orderly way and actively work on cooperation projects designed to improve on local infrastructure and people's welfare. ASEAN countries are among the top destinations of Chinese enterprises "going global" and also are a key source of foreign investment in China. In recent years, investments in ASEAN countries by Chinese enterprises have increased rapidly, with areas expanding from traditional construction and project contracting to new energies, manufacturing, business services and other new areas. While setting up economic and trade cooperation zones inside ASEAN countries, China will also encourage capable Chinese enterprises to expand their investment in ASEAN countries. At the same time, we will, as always, welcome investment in China by enterprises from ASEAN countries, particularly in China's central and western regions where mutually-beneficial cooperation between the two sides promises huge potential returns.

Third, work more vigorously to advance connectivity. Connectivity within ASEAN and between China and ASEAN is the important foundation for deepening trade and economic cooperation as well as personnel exchanges. It is a measure of strategic importance that will promote intra-regional economic integration and enhance regional competitiveness, thus contributing to a sustained and steady growth of the regional economy. China is ready to establish all-dimensional, in-depth and strategic connectivity with ASEAN. Currently, we are actively preparing for the establishment of the Chinese Committee on China-ASEAN Connectivity and will in due course set up interaction and institutionalized exchanges with relevant ASEAN agencies. We are ready to set up an investment and financing platform for connectivity, step up land connectivity with ASEAN countries, build maritime connectivity network and expand cooperation in such areas as ports, maritime logistics and port industries.

Fourth, work more vigorously to promote social and people-to-people exchanges. The bedrock for friendship and good-neighborliness is with the people. We should make full use of the institutions and platforms such as ASEAN-China Center, Conference on China-ASEAN People-to-People Friendship Organizations and China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week to facilitate friendly exchanges in culture, education, tourism, youth and other areas with a view to increasing the mutual understanding and friendship between our peoples. We should explore for the creation of a new platform of tourism cooperation designed to raise the number of people engaged in two-way personnel exchange to 15 million by 2015. We should also carry out a variety of youth exchanges and activities between the two sides. China proposes the establishment of a China-ASEAN Students' Friendship Association. Both sides should work to implement the "Double 100,000 Students Mobility Program" that envisages 100,000 students from each side by 2020, so that more young people will join our exchanges of regional cooperation and carry forward the torch of China-ASEAN friendship and good-neighborliness.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

With economic globalization and regional integration developing in greater depth, the future destinies of China and ASEAN have never been so closely linked with each other. It is our common strategic choice to further China-ASEAN strategic partnership. I am convinced that with our joint efforts, including the hard work of the ASEAN Secretariat and our host, China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the China-ASEAN Expo, China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit and Forum on China-ASEAN Free Trade Area will be a great success with their special features and real results, thus making a big contribution to China-ASEAN cooperation and FTA development. China will work with ASEAN countries in jointly ushering in a better future for China-ASEAN friendship and cooperation.

May I conclude by wishing the current China-ASEAN Expo, the China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit and the 2012 Forum on China-ASEAN Free Trade Area a complete success.

Thank you.