Xi Focus: Xi sends letter to sixth CIIE, pledges high-standard opening up

This photo taken on November 3, 2023, shows the south square of the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), the main venue for the 6th China International Import Expo (CIIE), in east China's Shanghai. [Xinhua/Liu Ying]

Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a letter to the sixth China International Import Expo (CIIE), which opened in Shanghai on Sunday, pledging firm efforts to advance high-standard opening up.

First held in 2018, the annual expo has leveraged the strengths of China's enormous market, fulfilled its platform function for international procurement, investment promotion, people-to-people exchanges and open cooperation, and made positive contributions to creating a new development pattern and promoting world economic development, Xi said in the letter.

Noting that the world economic recovery lacks momentum and requires the solidarity and cooperation of all countries, Xi said China will always be an important opportunity for global development.

He pledged that China will firmly advance high-standard opening up and continue to make economic globalization more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all.

The CIIE is the world's first national-level exposition dedicated to imports and an event Xi personally planned, proposed, deployed and promoted.

Since its debut in 2018, the expo has become a showcase of China's new development paradigm, a platform for high-standard opening up, and a public good for the whole world.

This photo taken on November 3, 2023 shows an electronic poster of the 6th China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Xuhui District of Shanghai, east China. [Xinhua/Meng Tao]

The previous five editions saw a total of 131 countries and international organizations participating in country exhibitions, with nearly 2,000 new products, technologies and services making their debuts and a combined intended turnover reaching nearly 350 billion U.S. dollars.

Xi said in his letter that he hopes the CIIE will better serve as a window for fostering a new development pattern that creates new opportunities for the world through China's further development, and as a platform of high-standard opening up that allows China's enormous market to be shared by the world.

He also expressed the hope that the expo will play a greater role in providing shared international public goods and services that facilitate an open world economy and let the world benefit from win-win cooperation.

This year's expo, scheduled from Nov. 5 to 10, has set a new record with 289 Global Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders in attendance. Over 3,400 exhibitors and 394,000 professional visitors registered for the event, a full recovery to pre-pandemic levels.

Capitalizing on China's vast market opportunities, participants have come to Shanghai from 154 countries, regions and international organizations, including the least developed, developing and developed nations.