Keynote Speech by H.E. Ambassador Liu Xiaoming at the APPCG Q&A with Ambassador on the 'Two Sessions': Understand the 'Two Sessions', Build up Consensus and Create a Bright Future

Third, China continues to increase its contribution to global economy.

In 2018, China's economy contributed close to 30% of world economic growth and continued to be the "main engine" of world economic growth after more than ten years in a row.

At the same time, China's foreign trade is more balanced. The surplus has been dropping by 18.3% year on year. Take China-UK trade for example. In 2018, China reports 6.9% increase of import from the UK, while the British statistics is even higher, at 30%.

According to WTO statistics of the first three quarters of 2018, China's share of global import grew by 0.7 percentage points to 10.9%, and China's contribution to the growth of global import was 16.8%.

China is also a main contributor to global poverty alleviation. According to the statistics of the World Bank, for every 10 people lifted out of poverty, 7 are in China.

China plans to eradicate absolute poverty by 2020. That would be ten years ahead of the scheduled goal set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the United Nations. How China manages to accomplish this will provide useful experience to other countries as they strive to reduce poverty.

Now let me come to the second question: Where is China's reform and opening up going?

The year 2018 marked the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up. This great cause is now faced with increasingly severe challenges. Against these challenges, the "Two Sessions" sends a clear message again that China will stay committed to the basic policy of reform and opening up.

In my view, in China's endeavour to deepen reform and open up wider to the world, there will be three focal points:

First, China will take on the most difficult issues in key areas of reform.

China will press ahead with supply-side reform. In this process, we will not shy away from key issues or major problems, and we will seek breakthroughs in key areas.

We will continue to streamline administration, delegate power to lower government levels, strengthen regulation and improve services.

We will continue to build better "hardware", namely the infrastructure. At the same time, we will make greater efforts to improve our "software", such as shortening the negative list for market access.

We will also accelerate reform relating to state owned assets and enterprises, and we will foster a private sector-friendly environment and make every effort to ease the bottlenecks facing private companies.

Moreover, we will deepen reform in the fiscal, taxation and financial system in order to

· regulate local government financing,

· serve the real economy better,

· improve the structure of the financial system,

· and promote the sound and steady development of the multi-tiered capital markets.

Second, China will tackle external challenges by improving its opening-up layout.

Against the headwind of unilateralism and protectionism, China is keeping its door open to the world. We have provided access to more sectors, optimised the opening-up layout and sought to advance domestic reform and development through opening up.

Going forward, China will further increase market access, open up more sectors to wholly foreign-owned companies and provide a level playing field for domestic and foreign companies alike.

The Belt and Road Initiative is the master plan for China's opening up. At the end of this month, the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will be held in Beijing. We look forward to working with friends from all countries to make sure that BRI projects are of high quality. In particular, we wish to see strong participation from the UK, and we stand ready to engage the UK in deeper and more substantial cooperation on BRI.

China will also work hard to increase import. Later this year, we will host the second China International Import Expo. British entrepreneurs are welcomed to take part in the Expo and bring their products and services to the Chinese market.