This year's Davos was chillier than usual with the cloud of the world economic downturn looming over it. But China blew a gentle breeze of confidence into the small town in Switzerland during the cold winter.

Premier Wen Jiabao stated in his special address to the World Economic Forum there that China was fully confident it could achieve 8-percent GDP growth this year, and that stable and sustainable Chinese growth would ultimately benefit world economic development.

Amid the global financial meltdown, the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, usually referred to as the Davos Forum, drew some of the world's most brilliant government and business leaders on January 28-February 1. The theme of this year's forum was "Shaping the Post-crisis World."

Wen's words at Davos were demonstrated during his later visits to three other European countries, where he vowed that China would soon send business delegations to purchase equipment, technologies and commodities from European countries.

Executives from China Mobile Ltd., the world's largest mobile carrier, said at Davos that they planned to buy equipment for the company's new third-generation network from Ericsson AB and Nokia Siemens Networks, according to a Reuters report. China Mobile will spend 58.8 billion yuan ($8.6 billion) this year to build its third-generation TD-SCDMA network.

Justin Lin Yifu, Chief Economist of the World Bank, said it would be necessary for China to maintain a stable renminbi exchange rate against other currencies, because a stable exchange rate would allow companies to make the right business decisions.

Although the forum participants did not take decisive measures or reach any solutions to tackle the prolonged financial crisis, many Chinese business leaders said they were confident that the world economic situation would eventually improve over the next few years.

Yang Kaisheng, President of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Co. Ltd., said he was looking forward to the positive results of U.S. President Barrack Obama's stimulus package.

"The banking system in the United States has indeed had some flaws in investment banking and supervision sectors, but Wall Street has a powerful correction mechanism," Yang said. He added that he believed Wall Street would resume its vigor and vitality in a few years and iterated that restoring people's confidence in the economy was the most urgent task at present.

Wang Xuehong, Chairman of VIA Technologies Inc., a Taiwan-based silicon platform provider, said this year could be full of opportunities for China's hi-tech industries, and that the crisis provided her company a chance to invest into research and development.

If we have more money, we can buy more intellectual properties as the crisis unfolds, and then build up more advanced technologies on those intellectual properties, Wang said.

Strengthen Confidence and Work Together for A New Round of World Economic Growth

Blow are excerpts from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's special address to the World Economic Forum held from January 28 to February 1.

TALK OF CONFIDENCE: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao poses in a picture with Pascal Lamy, Director General of the World Trade Organization, on January 28 at the World Economic Forum held in Davos

People from across the world are eager to hear words of wisdom from here that will give them strength to tide over the crisis. It is thus our responsibility to send to the world a message of confidence, courage and hope.

What are the current problems in the global financial system?

This crisis is attributable to a variety of factors, and the major ones are the inappropriate macroeconomic policies of some economies and their unsustainable models of development characterized by prolonged low savings and high consumption; the excessive expansion of financial institutions in a blind pursuit of profit; a lack of self-discipline among financial institutions and rating agencies and the ensuing distortion of risk information and asset pricing; and the failure of financial supervision and regulations to keep up with financial innovations, which allowed the risks of financial derivatives to build and spread.

We must strike a balance between savings and consumption, between financial innovation and regulation, and between the financial sector and real economy.