On December 7, the famous Icelandic newspaper Morgunblaðið published a signed article by Ambassador Jin Zhijian entitled A New Blueprint for China's Development Brings the World New Opportunities.
The full text is as follows:
At its recently concluded Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee, the Communist Party of China (CPC) deliberated on and adopted the "CPC Central Committee's Proposals for the Formulation of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035". It has set forth a comprehensive plan for China's development in the coming five years, and outlined the blueprint for the development of the next 15 years.
The Five-Year Plan is an important way for the CPC to govern the country and an effective way for the outside world to understand China's economic and social development. 2020 is the last year for the implementation of the 13th Five-Year Plan. This is the year when China will have completed the building of a moderately prosperous society in all aspects and eliminated absolute poverty. In 2021, China will enter a new development stage and embark on a new journey of building a modern socialist country in all aspects.
The14th Five-Year Plan sets the targets for China' development for the next five years in six new areas: new results in economic development, new strides in reform and opening-up, new improvement in social etiquette and civility, new progress in building an ecological civilization, new heights in people's wellbeing, new levels of efficacy in state governance.
By 2035, China will have basically achieved socialist modernization. China's economic, technological and composite national strength will have increased significantly. Major breakthroughs will have been made in key core technologies. A modernized economy will have been fully developed. The modernization of China's system and capacity for governance will have been basically realized. China's cultural soft power will have grown even stronger. Eco-friendly ways of work and life will have been advanced to cover all areas of society. The opening-up will have reached a new stage. The per capita GDP will reach the level of moderately developed countries. People will lead a better life.
According to the Plan, China will foster a new development paradigm with domestic circulation as the mainstay and domestic and international circulations reinforcing each other, and help boost the high-quality development. The new development paradigm will enable China to fully unlock its market potential and create greater demand for other countries. China's per capita GDP has topped US$10,000, and its middle-income population has exceeded 400 million. As China's economy grows, our people naturally want to lead an even better life. This will create more demand for a greater variety of quality products, technologies and services from across the world. Despite the damage inflicted by COVID-19, the fundamentals sustaining China's steady and long-term economic growth remain unchanged. This year, China's GDP will exceed 100 trillion RMB Yuan(or 14.5 trillion US dollars), and China is expected to be the only major economy to grow in 2020. By the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China's economy is expected to reach the current level of high-income countries. Hence it is certainly possible that China's GDP or per capita income could double by 2035.
According to the Plan, China will expand opening up more vigorously and share development opportunities with other countries in the world. China will build an open economy of higher standards, advance trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, improve its system for foreign investment management based on pre-establishment national treatment and negative list, open up the service sector in a well-planned way, protect the lawful rights and interests of foreign investors, improve legislation, policies and services to promote and protect outbound investment. China will continue to optimize the layout of the free trade pilot zone and give full play to the role of important exhibition platforms such as the China International Import Expo. China will adhere to the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, pursue open, green and clean cooperation and work together for the high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.
Looking forward, with a higher level of openness, broader market, increased pace of innovation and stronger development resilience, China will bring more new opportunities for strengthened China-Iceland cooperation and common development. The two sides enjoy broad prospects in cooperation of clean energy, biosimilars, electronic communications, shipbuilding and digital economy. 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Iceland. China is willing to work together with Iceland for shared opportunities and mutual development, safeguard multilateralism and the core role of the United Nations in the international affairs, jointly respond to the challenges of climate change and create a community of a shared future for mankind.
Chinese Ambassador to Iceland Jin Zhijian