Your Excellency Mr. Dominique de Villepin, Former Frime Minister of France, honorable General Quesnot and your wife, distinguished guests and friends, ladies and gentlemen,
Today, the Chengdu witnesses the grand opening ceremony of the 4th International Cooperation Summit for Asia-Pacific CEOs & Provincial Governors and Mayors. Entrusted by our province governor Jiang Jufeng and on behalf of Sichuan Government and over 88 million of Sichuan people, I’d like to convey our heartfelt thanks for your support to earthquake relief work and attention to post-disaster reconstruction. My thanks also go to the Asia-Pacific CEO Association for your great efforts at this Summit.
Sichuan is a large province in terms of population, resources and economy in the west of China. It covers an area of 485,000 square kilometers. Its GDP exceeded 1 trillion yuan last year. Sichuan is an important intersection and transportation corridor connecting South China and Middle China, southwest and northwest of China and linking up Central Asia and Southeast Asia. It’s also an important distributing center of factors and commodities in the west of China,especially the southwest part, upon which the economic development of Yunnan,Guizhou, Xizang, Gansu and other provinces rely heavily. Sichuan enjoys obvious industrial advantages in the fields of electronic information, equipment manufacturing, and energy and electricity industry, especially chemical engineering, websterite steel industry, drinking and foods and morden traditional Chinese medicine industry. What’s more, Aerospace and biopharmaceuticals industries have great potentials. Sichuan also has prominent advantages in transportation resources, trade and commerce and science and technology talents, which play a decisive role in the west of our country. Sichuan grasped this rare opportunity of the strategy of developing China’s western regions implemented by the Central Government to actively open itself to the outside world and strenthen communication and cooperation with other countries. It has eatablished trade and economic relations with 203 countries and regions. Among the top 500 companies in the world,140 have made their presence in Sichuan. Foreign trade and foreign direct investment maintain a rapid development momentum.
The Wenchuan extraordinary earthquake destroyed the epicenter and also gave rise to huge losses of people’s lives and properties. However, in general, production capacity and material foundations are not damaged totally. The investment and development environment does not change radically. Sichuan is still vibrant with life and energy. It is almost 7 months since the “5.12” Wenchuan extraordinary earthquake broke out and now our economy and society are stable and the reconstruction work is progressing in good order. Besides, the national policy support and assistance to the post-disaster recovery and reconstruction create a unique advantage to speed up the economic and social development of our province in an all-round way. In the next three years, investment of our province will exceed 3 trillion RMB, 1.7 trillion of which will be used for reconstruction. Investors from home and abroad are still confident in Sichuan and in the accelerating development momentum of Sichuan. Sichuan is beautiful as ever and full of business oppotunities after the earthquake. Sichuan is working towards the overall objective of “one hub, three centers and four bases” and making great efforts to develop into the comprehensive transportation hub in the west reaching out in all directions and the logistic center, bussiness center and financial center in the west as well as strategic resource exploition base, modern processing and manufacturing base, science and technology innovation industrialization base and agro-product deep-processing base. We are striving to become the economic development highland in the west of China covering the west of China, reaching throughout the country and getting integrated into the world.
Ladies and gentlement, the global financial crisis not only brings about a number of uncertainties to the economic growth of China but also offers new opportunites to the Asia-Pacific region and China. We hope that, in this Summit, all of us discuss the present and future of the Asia Pacific region together, strengthen communication and cooperation in the Pan-Asia region and jointly cope with the complicated economic scenario to achieve mutual benefits and a win-win situation.
Finally, I wish the 4th International Cooperation Summit for Asia-Pacific CEOs & Provincial Governors and Mayors a complete successs. Best wishes to all the distinguished guests and friends. Thank you !
