First, China's development is a long and arduous task. China is the world's biggest developing country. A large population, a weak foundation and uneven development: these are the basic realities confronting us. China has 1.3 billion people. Our per capita gross domestic product (GDP) has just exceeded $3,000, trailing behind more than 100 countries. According to UN standard, we still have over 100 million people living below the poverty line. It is truly a heavy task to grow the economy and improve people's livelihood in China. The scale and complexity of the challenges that we face in the course of development are unmatched anywhere else in the world and have been rarely seen in human history. To achieve modernization and ensure a prosperous life for all our people, we must make persistent efforts for a long time to come.

Second, peaceful development is China's only and logical choice. The Chinese people love peace. It is our long-cherished tradition to foster harmony and build amicable ties with neighbors. China's development will not bring harm or pose a threat to anyone. We advocate and follow the principle of "do not do onto others what you do not want others to do onto you". The Chinese people suffered so much in modern history, and we therefore value peace, stability, harmony and freedom more than anything else. China is committed to the path of peaceful development. A prosperous and growing China dedicated to peace and cooperation is willing and able to make new and even greater contribution to mankind's pursuit of peace and development.

Third, China's development is an inclusive, win-win process. China pursues a win-win strategy of opening-up and seeks to promote common development of all countries through mutually-beneficial cooperation. Guided by the basic state policy of opening-up, we have been endeavoring to develop an open economy, increase import, actively use foreign investment, implement the Free Trade Agreement strategy at a faster pace, push forward regional economic integration, and share with other countries the benefits of expanding markets and deepening division of labor. China has taken an active part in the international cooperation to counter the global financial crisis ever since it broke out. We have sent many trade and investment promotion missions and large procurement missions abroad. China has made great efforts to support and help developing countries. We have cancelled the debts owed by 49 heavily indebted poor countries and least developed countries and offered zero-tariff treatment to commodities from more than 40 least developed countries. Last November, we announced eight new measures in support of Africa's sustainable development. These measures will help expand China's trade with and investment in Africa, intensify practical cooperation between the two sides, build up Africa's capacity to achieve self-development, and strengthen our joint endeavor to counter the global financial crisis.

Fourth, China follows a responsible approach in pursuing development. The year 2009 was the most difficult year for the Chinese economy since the beginning of the new century. The global financial crisis led to a sharp decline in China's export, a big increase in unemployment and a slowdown in economic growth. Confronted with such a situation, we gave top priority to maintaining steady and relatively fast economic growth, and fully implemented and steadily improved our package plan and policy measures in response to the financial crisis. Thanks to these efforts, we achieved an 8.7 percent GDP growth and made important contribution to the world economic recovery. To ensure steady and relatively fast growth, we have taken it as an important task to speed up the transformation of growth pattern and economic restructuring. We have worked hard to promote coordinated growth of consumption, export and investment, with a special emphasis on boosting domestic demand and increasing household consumption. We have no intention to seek trade surplus. Quite the contrary, we have always placed high importance on achieving equilibrium in the balance of international payments in an effort to maintain macroeconomic stability. Last year, China's trade surplus dropped by $102 billion over the previous year, yet our import in goods reached $1.0056 trillion, making China the world's second largest importing country and presenting great opportunities for foreign goods and services. We have been following a managed floating exchange rate regime in accordance with the principle of independent initiative, controllability and gradualism. Despite the tremendous difficulties caused by the global financial crisis, we have kept the RMB (yuan) exchange rate basically stable and have thus made contribution to the stability of the international economic and financial systems.

Dear Colleagues,

The Shanghai World Expo will open in two weeks. The World Expo is a great event for countries to increase economic and cultural exchanges and promote progress of human civilization. On behalf of the Chinese Government and people, I warmly welcome friends from Brazil, India, Russia and all countries of the world to go to the beautiful city of Shanghai and join us in this great event. Together, we will contribute to and witness a successful, splendid and memorable World Expo.

Thank you!

Source: www.fmprc.gov.cn