Highlights of President Xi’s opening speech for the 2nd CIIE

China will continue to improve the climate of doing business in China, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech that announced the opening of the second China International Import Expo (CIIE) on Tuesday in Shanghai.

China has achieved major progress in expanding import to promote consumption and cutting tariffs as part of the country's efforts to further open up its market, said Xi. He added that all of the five measures to expand opening up announced at the previous CIIE have been generally implemented.

A total of 155 countries and regions and 26 international organizations are attending the second CIIE, which runs from November 5 to 10.

Xi’s speech also called for global efforts for openness and cooperation and raised more measures that China will take to keep its door wider to the world. The below are highlights:

To cut tariffs, institutional costs

China will pay more attention to the role of imports and continue to open up its market.

Steps will be taken to further cut tariffs and institutional costs, nurture a batch of innovative demonstration zones for import facilitation, and expand import of high-quality products and services from other countries.

To further ease access to foreign investment

China will further ease market access for foreign investment and shorten the negative list.

China will also continue to improve the business environment to make it more market-oriented, law-based and internationalized.

Five measures to promote higher-level opening up

– Continue to expand market opening up; –Continue to optimize the framework of opening up; –Continue to improve the business environment; –Continue to deepen multilateral and bilateral cooperation; –Continue to jointly build the Belt and Road.

Opposition to protectionism, unilateralism

Xi proposed continuous reduction of trade barriers and further improvement of global value and supply chains to jointly nurture market demand.

Three proposals for economic globalization

–Jointly building an open and cooperative world economy;

–Jointly building an open and innovative world economy;

–Jointly building an open and sharing world economy.