中华人民共和国驻孟买总领事馆经济商务处

Economic and Commercial Office of the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Mumbai

Remarks to the Business Community in Banglore

Niu Qingbao, Chinese Consul-General in Mumbai

10 November 2010, Banglore

The Hon. Mr. Vinod K. Nowal, Vice Chairman

The Hon. Mr. Baskaran, Secretary-General, ICFA Karnataka

Distinguished Guests from the business community

Ladies and gentlemen：

Good afternoon.

It gives me great pleasure to visit beautiful Bangalore, India’s silicon-valley as well as a city of hope.  This year marks the 60^th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and India.  It also marks the 61^st anniversary of the founding of the new China and 63^rd anniversary of the independence of India.  Over the past 6 decades or also, both China and India have gone through sea-changes.  I wish to take this opportunity to share with you my views on China and China-India relations.

I.                  China’s development

Since the liberation 61 years back, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, China has made tremendous achievements. 

In the old days, only the children of rich families were privileged to receive education.  They accounted for a small percentage of the general population.  In new China, we adopt a 9-year compulsory education system.  Now, nationwide admission rate of primary schools stands at 99.5%;  Junior middle schools’ admission rate is 98.5%;  Colleges and universities have an admission rate of 25%.

Since the reform and opening-up 32 years ago, China has experienced double-digit economic growth.  China’s progress in the last decade has been even more impressive.  To quote a few statistics:

China is now the second largest economy, largest exporting nation, largest producer and largest consumer of steel, concrete, coal and automobiles.  I am particularly proud of China’s infrastructure.  China has the longest mileage of high-speed railways.  7055km is in operation and another 10,000km is being constructed.  Trains ride at 350kmh between Beijing and Tianjin, Wuhan and Guangzhou, Zhengzhou and Xian, and between Shanghai and Nanjing.  On Sept. 28, 2010, a home-made train made it to 416.6km on the existing track between Shanghai and Hangzhou.  By 2012, China will have a railway mileage of 110,000km, of which 13,000 will be high-speed.  As for roads, China’s road mileage stands at 3.7 million km, of which 65,000 km are expressway, which is world no. 2.  It is expected to surpass the US and become no.1 in 2-3 years.

China has made unprecedented achievements during these years.  But China is still a developing country.  China may be the second largest economy, but like Premier Wen Jiabao said in last September in the United Nations, in per capita terms, it is only one-tenth of that of developed countries.  China has enjoyed over 30 years of fast growth, but its further development faces energy, resources and environmental constraints.  China is a leading producer of many important products, but it remains at the lower end of the global industrial chain.  China is a big trading nation, but its exports are low in technology content and value added.  In many cases, we have to rely on imports to meet the demand for core technologies.  China’s coastal areas and some of the big and medium-sized cities thrive in modernization, but many places in the central and western regions and the vast rural areas are still rather backward, and we have 150 million people living below the poverty line set by the United Nations.  The Chinese people’s livelihood has made significant improvement, but we do not yet have a full-fledged social security system, and we are confronted with high employment pressure.  Our people are more and more actively engaged in the country’s social and political development, and citizens’ rights and interests are better protected, yet our democracy and legal system still have room for improvement and such social ills as inequity and corruption still exist.  China, which has come a long way in modernization, is fairly advanced in some areas of development but remains backward in others.  And it faces unprecedented challenges brought by problems both old and new.  Taken as a whole, China is still in the primary stage of socialism and remains a developing country.  These are our basic national conditions.  This is the real China.

Now I would like to share with you the main spirit of China’s 12^th Five-Year Plan.

In mid October, the 5^th Plenary Session of the 17^th Party Congress adopted an important document: the CPC Central Committee’s proposal of the 12^th Five-Year Plan.  Mind you, this is only the Party’s proposal.  It will undergo several rounds of public and expert discussion and may have multiply revisions.  However, the main spirit will remain.  This is a master plan of China’s nation building for the next five years.  It is impossible to cover all of its contents, so I have to be selective.  I guess you are interested in knowing what China wants to accomplish for the 12^th Five-Year Plan period, namely from 2011 to 2015.  You may want to find in what areas you can participate and how to benefit from it.  Following are China’s goals—also areas where China will devote resources and some of which India Inc. can probably participate:

1. Maintain stable control over the macro-economy. GDP growth will be maintained at 7.5% and urban unemployment rate be kept under 7%, creating 40 million jobs for urban residents and another 40 million for rural migrant workers.  Price levels will also be stabilized and a balance struck between public revenues and international payments.

2. Industrial structure will be optimized and upgraded, and development of modern services industries will be quickened.  The GDP-proportion of and job creation in the services sector will increase by 3 and 4 percentage points, respectively. Overall, great strides will be made in domestic innovation.  The GDP-proportion of hi-tech industry and services industry will increase 4 percentage points in GDP.

3. Sustainable development will be enhanced.  Energy consumption per GDP unit will decrease by 20%. Special attention will also be given to improving renewable energy and efficient coal use, decreasing wasteful water consumption and major pollutants to purify air and water quality., cultivating farmland, containing environmental degradation, increasing carbon credit, combating desertification, controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and enhancing disaster relief efforts.

4. Basic public services will cover both urban and rural residents.  This includes addressing overall poverty and greatly reducing the urban population living in poverty, as well as eliminating unsafe drinking water.  A modern educational system will also be set up.  Universal basic medical health care and the social security net will be extended to cover more people.  Rural basic old-age i8nsurance will cover more than 50% of all rural residents.

5. Fast human development.  Average urban disposable income and per-capita net income of rural residents will increase at an annual rate of 7%.  The contribution of consumption to GDP growth will be raised.  Average life expectancy will reach 74 years and human development index reaching above 0.84.

6. Urban and rural regional development will be more coordinated.  The widening gap between rural and urban residents will be effectively contained, as will the gap in public services to rural and urban areas.  Urban-rural and regionally coordinated development mechanisms and major functional areas will take shape.

7. The socialist market economic system will be further improved.  Reform and institutional construction in such fields as administrative governance, state-owned and public undertakings, finance and taxation will make major breakthroughs.  The price-forming mechanism of production factors and resources that can reflect market demand and supply, rareness of resources and environment damage costs will be improved.  A modern society credit system will be in the main formed.

8. Socialist political and cultural construction will also witness new breakthroughs.  Citizens’ participation in politics will be expanded.  The self-governance of villagers will be improved and direct suffrage of neighborhood committees in cities will be encouraged and are expected to rise above 75% by 2015.  The cultural industry will be revitalized, with its proportion of GDP increasing gradually.

II.               China-India relations

Both China and India are ancient civilizations.  We are neighboring countries connected by common mountains and rivers.  Friendly contacts between the Chinese and India people date back to 2000 year ago.  60 years since the establishment of the diplomatic ties, the relations between the two countries have been improved steadily through joint hard work and with the personal care of founding fathers of the new China and the independent India.  Entering the new century, the strategic partnership facing peace and prosperity between the two countries was established and continuously deepened.  Exchanges and cooperation in political, economical, cultural and many other fields are witnessing fast expansion.  As the most populous and largest developing countries, China and India have communicated and coordinated well on major world issues like the global financial crisis and climate change, safeguarding the interests of developing countries. The relationship between India and China has gone through a long way of progress and is getting mature, stabilized and promising. 

First of all, the mutual trust of the two countries is enhanced.  High level visits and contacts are constant.  Exchanges and cooperation in all fields are expanding. The contents of the strategic partnership facing peace and prosperity are getting enriched.  Mechanisms of dialogue and exchanges in various fields have been established, including legislative and political-party interactions, strategic dialogue, consultations in areas of foreign policy, anti-terrorism, defense and security and finance.  Under these frames, the two sides exchange views of global and territorial issues of great significance. All these contribute to enhancement of the political and strategic mutual trust and help lay the foundation for a long-term and steady development of our bilateral relations.

Secondly, great potentials of bilateral trade and economic cooperation are being utilized.  In 2000, China-India trade was less than $3 billion.  Last year, it was $43.2 billion. China-India trade volume totaled $45.4 billion for the first 9 months this year, more than last year’s total.  The whole year’s volume is expected to reach $60 billion, a growth of almost 20 times in 10 years.  Now, China is India's largest trading partner while India China's largest trading partner in South Asia.  Mutual investment has been increasing steadily.  Cumulative Indian investment in China has exceeded $300 million while Chinese investment in India is fast approaching this number.  China and India will expand cooperation for mutual benefit and win-win progress, eliminating trade protectionism.  I believe that the bilateral trade and economic cooperation will stand on a new step.

Thirdly, people-to-people contacts between our two countries are becoming more and more frequent.  China named India a Designated Tourism Destination in 2003.  2007 was celebrated as the China-India Year of Friendship through Tourism.  Last year, there were about 600,000 person-times travel between China and India.  India is now China’s 16^th largest sources of international tourism.  About 10,000 Chinese and Indian students study in each other’s universities.  Cultural exchanges are flourishing.  “China festival” and “India festival” are being staged respectively in each other country.  My Consulate-General is proud to participate by staging a Photo Exhibition Marking the 60 Years of China-India Diplomatic Relationship right now in this beautiful city of Bangalore. More mutual visitors and cultural events will greatly deepen our mutual understanding and friendship.

Fourthly, China-India cooperation on international issues is widespread and productive.  China and India are the largest developing countries.  We have common interests in many areas and share same or similar views on many major global issues. Today’s world political and economic order is not the best, with a small number of developed countries dominating over a vast number of developing countries.  Without China and India joining hands, the overall interests of developing countries cannot be safeguarded.  With China and India coordination and cooperation, we can make the world a much better place.  In recent years, the two countries strengthened their coordination in many occasions, played positive and constructive roles in the global stages and were highly valued by the international community.

III. Trade and Investment Opportunities

Ladies and gentlemen,

Trade and economic cooperation are a vital link between our two countries and have brought touchable welfare to our peoples.  I wish to share my views on our economic relationship.

First, our two economies are mutually complementary. China is dubbed “the world factory”.  Its manufacturing sector has a strong advantage and is the largest producer of steel, cement, chemical fertilizer, electric appliances, etc.  India, on the other hand, is called the “world office”.  It is very good at innovation and services.  India has a strong demand of industrial products from China, and its IT, financial and pharmaceutical companies will find a giant and fast growing market in China.

Secondly, Chinese and Indian exports are mutually complementary. Mechanical and electrical products are major exports from China to India, while India exports a lot of iron ore and other raw material to China. In the field like chemical, plastic and rubber, textile, mechanical and electrical industry, our two countries have comparative advantage and have great potential to join hands and explore the world market.

Thirdly, China and India need each other in IT Industry. China is number 1 in hardware but needs India’s software expertise.  India is number 1 in software but needs China’s hardware products.  By joining hands like one, we will be world number 1. This is a win-win situation.

Fourthly, China has a lot to share in the area of infrastructure. Chinese companies are highly experienced at building infrastructure such as high-speed railways, expressways, bridges, ports, power network, etc.  They also have relatively easier access to financing.  India is undergoing a huge wave of infrastructure construction, thus breaking the bottle-neck of transportation and laying a more solid foundation for sustained growth. It is impossible to find another pair as suitable.  China and India are simply meant for each other.

Dear friends,

Our bilateral relationship hasn't always been easy.  But cooperation and dialogue have always been the mainstream.  As long as both sides have the overall interests of the people in mind, adopt approaches of friendly consultation, equality and mutual benefits, China-India relationship including China-India economic relationship will develop smoothly and steadily.  Let’s join hands to push this friendly and cooperative relationship to new high.

Thank you!