A roll-on, roll-off vessel loads vehicles for export at a port in Lianyungang, East China's Jiangsu Province on October 9, 2022. In September, the port of Lianyungang exported 26,000 machines and vehicles, the highest monthly number on record. Photo: VCG

Opening-up is China's fundamental national policy, and also the hallmark of contemporary China, and China has never stopped its efforts to build an open economy at a higher level in the past decade, and will continue to uphold the win-win opening-up strategy and share growth opportunities with the world despite the rise of unilateralism and protectionism, China's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

Even though economic globalization has encountered headwinds over the past 10 years, China's opening-up trend has still gained sound momentum, with its foreign trade surging from $4.4 trillion to $6.9 trillion and the country becoming a major trading partner for over 140 countries and regions and the world's largest trading country, Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, said at a press conference in responding to a question about certain countries' reckless "decoupling" push. 

While there has been an obvious rise of unilateralism and protectionism in the world, China has never stopped its efforts to establish an open economy at a higher level, he said, adding that China has established 21 free trade pilot zones as a result of high-level institutional opening-up.

In addition to the growing trade, China's annual foreign direct investment (FDI) in actual use has hit 1.15 trillion yuan, up from 700 billion yuan, ranking second globally for five consecutive years since 2017. The capital stock of China's FDI abroad has soared from less than $0.6 trillion to over $2.7 trillion, now ranking third in the world, Wang noted.

"More and more multinational companies regard China as an important investment destination and believe that to invest in China is to invest in the future," Wang said.

An increasingly open Chinese economy has been sharing growth opportunities with global economies in the past decade, with its overall tariff level lowered to 7.4 percent, which is even lower than the 9.8 percent the country promised when entering the WTO, according to China's Ministry of Commerce. 

Moreover, the nation has granted zero-tariff treatment on 98 percent of taxable items originating in 16 less-developed countries, and it has held the world's first national-level exhibition focusing on imports, the China International Import Expo (CIIE). The total turnover of the four CIIEs recorded $272.27 billion. 

While the world economy is facing multiple challenges, the Chinese economy's strong resilience, enormous potential, and the fundamentals sustaining long-term sound development will stay unchanged, according to Wang. 

China will always support economic globalization, unswervingly promote high-level opening-up, accelerate the building of a new development paradigm, and provide more market, investment and growth opportunities for companies of all countries, he stressed. 

Global Times