Addressing the opening ceremony, Wen Jiabao stresses to promote the vision of World Expo and boost common development

On November 12, 2009, the 7th Shanghai World Expo China Forum opened in Beijing. Addressing the opening ceremony, Premier of the State Council Wen Jiabao stressed that China’s hosting of the World Expo brings opportunities to not only China itself but also the entire world and will exert a far-reaching influence on promoting the vision of World Expo and boosting world peace and development.

He said that the series of World Expo forum are important activities to widely promote the vision and increase the influence of World Expo. With the theme of "collecting global wisdom, jointly creating cities' future”, the Forum this year is of great significance to enriching the meaning of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and promoting its success. World Expo is a great event gathering together the achievements of human civilizations and each session has become a post house witnessing the progress of human civilizations. It has pushed forward international exchanges extensively beyond belief, geographical and ethnic boundaries and opened a window for mankind to update knowledge about the world. The history of World Expo is also a history of evolution of mankind from backwardness to progress, from being closed to open, from conflict to cooperation and from worship of material to advocacy of science. After one and half centuries’ development, World Expo has maintained a full vitality. It has not only inspired people’s enthusiasm and passion to create material wealth but also bequeathed to mankind a valuable spiritual wealth.

He pointed out that China and the World Expo have a long history of relationship which also witnessed the transition of China from being closed and semi-closed to all-round opening up and from being poor and weak to prosperous and strong. Some Chinese had proposed to hold the World Expo in China as early as one century ago. However, because the Chinese nation then was faced with troubles at home, aggression from abroad and decline of national power, to host the World Expo could only be a distant dream. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, especially since reform and opening up, China has seized historical opportunities, realized 30 years of fast growth and made remarkable achievements of socialist construction. China returned to the arena of World Expo and since then has played an increasingly role in the event. The Bureau of International Expositions (BIE) decided in 2002 to grant Shanghai, China, the right to host the 2010 World Expo, and the century-old dream of the Chinese nation finally becomes a reality.

He stressed that China is the developing country with the largest population in the world. It is the first time that World Expo will be hosted by a developing country, which fully demonstrates the vitality of World Expo as well as the great vision of the BIE. We will continue to try our best to make careful preparations, further strengthen cooperation with participating countries, regions and international organizations and make the Shanghai World Expo a great event of get-together for people all round the world, an event of promoting the development of human civilizations, an event of pushing forward innovation and cooperation and an event of consolidating confidence and advancing common development.

He also briefly introduced to the audience China’s efforts of coping with the international financial crisis and economic situation. He said that China, as a big developing country, has adopted a responsible attitude, handled its own affairs carefully, participated in international cooperation comprehensively and played a constructive role actively in the process of tackling the crisis. China always attaches great importance to the coordinated and sustainable economic and social development and has focused on expanding domestic demand, especially consumption demand in order to address the crisis. It has comprehensively implemented the package plan against the financial crisis and improved the plan constantly. As a result China has quickly reversed the declining trend in economic growth and also made contributions to world economic recovery. Practice shows our package plan and policy measures of handling the financial crisis are timely, effective and efficient. At present, the positive trend of the Chinese economy is gaining strength, but we still face difficulties and problems. We will further reinforce and improve macro control, properly balance the relations among maintaining stable and relatively fast economic growth, readjusting the economic structure and managing the inflation expectation, continue to implement the pro-active fiscal policy and moderately loose monetary policy, increase the policy flexibility and continuity, pay greater attention to quality and efficiency of economic growth and push for the stable and relatively fast growth of domestic economy.

He reiterated that China will unswervingly seek peaceful development, open development and cooperative development. China is willing to stand together with the international community to resolutely oppose trade and investment protectionism, appropriately handle risks and challenges and play its own part of promoting the harmonious and sustainable development of the world.

The 7th Shanghai World Expo China Forum was co-hosted by the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government and the BIE. More than 300 delegates attended the opening ceremony, including chairman and secretary general of the BIE, senior officials of the Shanghai municipal government, diplomatic envoys of World Expo participating countries in China and representatives of international organizations, World Expo organizing committee and executive committee, provinces and municipalities in China, sponsors and cooperation medias of World Expo.