Speech by Mr. Li Zhuobin, Member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC and Vice Chairman of All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, at the 9th IRMCL

Vice-Chairman Zheng Wantong, Vice-Chairman Li Yizhong, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, friends,

Good afternoon!

I’m glad to attend the 9th International Roundtable of Multinational Corporations' Leaders and on behalf of the Chair of the ACLAC,I would like to extend the congratulations on the opening of the Roundtable and we also wish that this Roundtable will help build consensus, increase mutual understanding, and practical cooperation, promote practical cooperation among businesses.

In September and October 2013, when Xi Jinping initiated the Belt and Road initiative, which was warmly received by the rest of the international community, so far over one hundred countries and international organizations are actively involved in this project. It is based on the principle of right consultation and joint contribution, and shared benefits, and it responded to the joint aspiration to the people to peace and to development. And it offers an Oriental wisdom for the common prosperity of the world. Chinese companies have seen their investments to countries along the Belt and Road route increase and this shows the concept advocated by the Belt and Road initiative has been responded very well.

The interaction between countries relies on those people-to-people contact. In August this year, President Xi made an important speech on the working conference on the Belt and Road project. Talking about the people-to-people exchanges, he mentioned in particular that we need to give full play to the role of returned overseas Chinese. For generations and a century, the Chinese people went abroad and started their businesses, thus starting up a business network throughout the world. This overseas Chinese have seen themselves integrated into the countries where they reside and they are now very familiar with the domestic laws of the irrespective countries as well as international practices. And these people have become natural bound bridges, linking China with these countries and they play an irreplaceable and very special role in the development of the Belt and Road.

The Belt and Road covers infrastructure, trade, culture, and road investment. And it offers a lot of business opportunities for win-win cooperation between overseas Chinese and multinational corporations. We always believe that the overseas Chinese should integrate themselves with the Belt and Road. They should seize opportunities instead of waiting for opportunities and they should contribute to the development of infrastructure, businesses, production capacity cooperation, and other model projects. We also firmly support the Chinese overseas and their companies to develop their business lawfully in their respective countries. The better they develop in their respective countries, the bigger role they will play in the development in the Belt and Road initiative.

We encourage associated enterprises to engage in the international commercial city project and these enterprises are in discussion with a number of Chambers of Commerce to contribute to the Belt and Road initiative and this will help extend the supply chain and industrial chain. The world economy is in recovery and profound readjustment. It is poised to enter a new phase of growth and there is now a lot of change to the allocation of labor in the international economy. China is the second largest economy in the world, so any slight change in the Chinese economy is closely watched all over the world. Now given the difficulties of the Chinese economy has also encountered some headwinds. Some people are concerned that a slow-down in the Chinese economy, it might take down the recovery of the world economy.

However, I want to draw your attention to the positive indicators in the Chinese economy which grew by 6.7% in the first three quarters of this year and end consumption contributed 71% to the economic output growth. And IT industry contributed to a greater share of the GDP. Energy consumption per unit of GDP has come down dramatically. And new drivers of growth, new business models are emerging. There are also good and welcome news concerning mass entrepreneurship and business start-up activities. We are confident in the enormous potential in the consumer spending of 1.3 billion Chinese people and I believe the good performance of the Chinese economy will be welcome news for global recovery.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Association of Returned Overseas Chinese will serve businesses founded by returned overseas Chinese and multinational corporations. Recently together with Tsinghua University, we established a strategic study center for the Belt and Road initiative. It is hoped that this research center will become a high end think tank and attract high level research personnel. We will make available to the research center the resources at our disposal and with the input of Tsinghua University. We hope to turnout some fruitful studies that can help the government make informed decisions and pioneer a new path for collaboration between enterprises. And this will be our modest contribution as returned overseas Chinese to the Belt and Road initiative.

Together with Association of Returned Overseas Chinese run businesses and so on, we would like to attract Chinese entrepreneurs in the countries along the Belt and Road route to leverage the Chinese business networks in different countries and regions and to work with domestic enterprises in China and to help their Chinese partners access overseas markets, upgrade the economic structure, and pursue win-win results.

Next year, the Association of Returned Overseas Chinese businessmen will host events in other continents to facilitate collaboration with businesses in those countries. Multinational corporations would always hope to place their resources and personnel in their most efficient way and benefit from economic globalization. Although in the moment, global trade and investment is pretty sluggish and protectionism is on therise. People are questioning the merit of globalization. In our view, economic globalization is a good thing because it contributes to more efficient allocation of resources around the world and we hope the businesses run by overseas Chinese, while deriving benefit from globalization will pay more attention to the interest of their business partners in other countries so as to make their business collaboration more sustainable. I hope it will be more attuned to the changes in the global business environment, cut out niche markets, identify new sources of growth, and make new progress.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, President Xi Jinping has said that China’s development is an opportunity for the world. I hope the multinationals, have it businesses in China, businesses run by returned overseas Chinese will leverage opportunities provided by the Belt and Road initiative and achieve win-win progress.

Thank you.