On the afternoon of September 13, 2010, the annual meeting of New Champions 2010 of the World Economic Forum (WEF) (the fourth Summer Davos Forum) opened in Tianjin Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center. Premier of the State Council Wen Jiabao attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech (see another article for the full text). He stressed that China will combine the short-term control policy with the long-term development policy and the deepening of reform and opening up with the promotion of scientific development, tangibly solve the deep and structural problems and promote the stronger and more sustained development of the Chinese economy.

Executive Chairman of the WEF Klaus Schwab, President of Iceland Olafur R. Grimsson, Prime Minister of Moldova Vlad Filat, Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea Michael Somare, Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Arthur Mutambara, Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia Miyegombo Enkhbold, Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria Simeon Djankov, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon as well as about 1,500 delegates from the political, business, academic and press communities of 88 countries and regions in the world attended the meeting.

Wen first of all extended congratulations on the meeting on behalf of the Chinese government. He said that China took the lead in the world to achieve economic rebound and has maintained stable and relatively fast economic growth in the past 2 years under extremely difficult and complex circumstances. These achievements are the result of our comprehensive implementation of the stimulus package. We have maintained not only the current economic growth and social stability but more importantly the sound momentum of Chinese economy. The severe external impact did not cause big fluctuations in China’s modernization process, which is of major and far-reaching significance.

He emphasized that when tackling the international financial crisis we have always given top priority to transforming the economic development pattern and restructuring the economy. In the past two years, domestic demand, consumption in particular, has played an increasingly important role in driving economic growth. The upgrading of the industrial structure has been accelerated, infrastructure construction has been strengthened, solid progress has been made in energy conservation, emission reduction and environmental protection and regional development has further been coordinated.

We have implemented a proactive fiscal policy and a moderately easy monetary policy with an unprecedented intensity of stimulus and at the same time kept fiscal and financial risks under control. Over the past two years, China’s budget deficit and government debt and Chinese banks’ capital adequacy ratio and non-performing loan ratio were all kept within a safe limit. Under the unexpected impact of international financial crisis, it is necessary for us to adopt unconventional policy measures which unavoidably would bring some negative influences while playing a positive role. The key is to control the negative influences within a tolerable range. From this perspective, we have done a good job of promoting the positive effects while reducing the negative ones.

He noted that by the stimulus package China has not only maintained the stable and relatively fast growth of its own economy but also contributed a lot to the recovery of world economy. The growth of Chinese economy provides key development opportunities for multinational companies, creates huge demand for major economies and neighboring countries, serves as an important engine of world economic recovery and has effectively boosted the global confidence in combating the international financial crisis.

He stressed that our package plan and policy measures to tackle the international financial crisis are compliant with China’s reality. Being timely, powerful and effective, they are a correct choice benefiting the current and future generations and the entire world. We will take it as a central task of macro control to appropriately handle the relationship among maintaining steady and relatively fast economic development, adjusting the economic structure and managing inflation expectations. We will take policy stability as the main focus of macro control, keep policy continuity and stability and make macro control measures more targeted and flexible in order to consolidate and strengthen the sound momentum of development.

The deep impact of international financial crisis is yet to end, the world economy has not entered a benign cycle of steady growth and systemic and structural risks remain prominent. Faced with new international and domestic circumstances and at present and for the near future, we will mainly make efforts in the following areas: to balance internal and external development and build a long-term mechanism of expanding domestic demand, especially consumption demand; to focus on innovation and promote technological progress and industrial structure optimization and upgrading; to save energy, protect environment and improve energy efficiency and capacity of handling climate change; to coordinate social and economic development and guarantee and improve people’s livelihood and social fairness and justice; to deepen reform and inject vigor into sustainable development.

China’s development is open and our opening up is long-term, comprehensive and mutually beneficial. We will insist on all the policies favorable to opening up. China is committed to fostering a level playfield for foreign invested companies. China attaches great importance to intellectual property right protection and has made intellectual property right protection a national strategy. It is willing to conduct exchanges and dialogue with all countries on intellectual property right. All the businesses registered in China according to Chinese laws are Chinese businesses whose products are all made in China and innovative products are all invented in China. Foreign invested enterprises which are registered in the Chinese territory all enjoy national treatment. Meanwhile, in terms of procurement, the Chinese government treats the products made by foreign invested enterprises and Chinese enterprises in China as equals.

He finally pointed out that China's huge market volume, sophisticated infrastructure, comprehensive industrial support capacity and stable and fair market environment are attracting more and more multinational enterprises to invest and develop business in China. Foreign invested enterprises generally operate soundly and are highly profitable in China and many have become the growth point and profit center of their parent company’s global business. We will continue to improve foreign related economic laws, regulations and policies and improve the business environment for foreign investors in China. We sincerely welcome enterprises from all countries to actively participate in China's reform and opening up and hope that all types of enterprises will strictly abide by Chinese laws and regulations, run businesses in China according to local laws and share the opportunities and benefits of China's prosperity and progress.

Prior to the opening ceremony, Wen held dialogues with entrepreneurs present at the annual meeting.

With the theme of “Driving Growth through Sustainability”, the 3-day forum arranges a tight schedule of over 80 sessions. Participants will discuss four topics, i.e. creating value for future market through business model, increasing competitiveness through science and technology, promoting economic and social changes and formulating effective global, industrial and regional solutions.

The WEF was founded by Schwab in 1971 and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It holds annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland at the beginning of each year. Summer Davos Forum is a global meeting of the WEF outside Davos. The first annual meeting of Summer Davos Forum was held in Dalian in 2007. This year Tianjin hosts the Forum for the second time.