China and Estonia:Working Together for Economic and Trade Prosperity
More than ten days later, we Chinese will have our own traditional new year, the Spring festivel. According to traditional Chinese culture, 2018 will be the “Dog Year”. Chinese years are represented by twelve zodiacal animal signs. Dog is the eleventh in the 12-year cycle of Chinese zodiac sign. In our culture, dog is man's good friend representing loyalty and friendship . We regard it as an auspicious animal. If a dog happens to come to a house, it symbolizes the coming of fortune. At the same time, dog stands for power. The invincible God Erlang in Chinese legend used a loyal wolfhound to help him capture monsters. Therefore, the Chinese love the year of Dog and look forward to frendship, fortune and power.
As in previous years, Chinese people are pleased to share with Estonian people our spring festivel joy. The "Happy Chinese New Year 2018 - Beijing week" series, jointly organized by the Tallinn municipal government and the Beijing municipal government, will kick off in Tallinn from this week. Moreover, an especially arranged Estonia Business Forum is to be introduced this year. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia, the two countries hope to show their strong willingness to carry out economic and trade friendly cooperation, establish a platform to exchange contacts and views for entities, and promote the Silk Road Initiative Memorandum signed last year by our two countries all the way to the ground. The business forum will take place on February 5th at Tallinn University of Technology, mainly focusing on fields of ICT, green technology and life science. We warmly welcome the active participation of Estonian enterprises.
I believe that there will be more and more exchanges among Chinese and Estonian enterprises in the future. Estonia is China's important friend in Baltic region. Through the platforms of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and 16+1 Cooperation, our two sides have been launching a large amount of pragmatic cooperation, involved in E-commerce, agriculture, quality supervision and inspection, health, education, culture and other fields.
Economic and trade cooperation has been rapidly advanced between our two countries. Chinese constructors and banks are working hand in hand with Estonia Energy Company to build a 2.2 billion Euro oil shale power plant in Jordan. SF-express, a leading Chinese logistic company, together with Omniva are creating a successful cooperation model of "e-commerce + logistics". Didi chuxing, a large Chinese ride hailing company, is standing on the united front with Taxify to popularize "smart + share" life style all across the world. Recently, Chinese engineering and repair specialist Guangzhou Hangxin Aviation Technology has announced to acquire Magnetic MRO with 43 million euros. Meanwhile, we are very pleased to see that Estonian piano is increasingly favored by Chinese professional consumers, Estonian log cabin is charging into the vast Chinese market, and Estonian dairy products and fish products are becoming new options for Chinese consumers. There are just a few examples showing the fast rising interest in mutually beneficial cooperation between enterprises of our two countries.
This year also marks the 40th annivsay of China reform and opening up. Just like Estonia, China is a beneficiary of economic reform. Without reform, China will not be able to solve the problem of food and clothing for 1.3 billion people within just 30 years, making it even less likely to become the world's second largest economy.
More importantly, China is deepening its reform. We make reform, opening-up and win-win cooperation as our basic state policy. This will remain unchanged. In October last year, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China took place in Beijing. The Congress set out several goals with a specific time frame for China development, namely a moderately prosperous society by 2020, basic socialist modernisation by 2035 and a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by the middle of this century. This means Chinese economy will present the following four main features:
First, China will maintain steady gorwth. Over the past five years, the Chinese economy registered an average annual growth of over 7%, contributing 30% to global growth. China's investment and trade created 15 million jobs worldwide every year. Now the Chinese government and people are rallying to realise their aim towards a moderately prosperous society by 2020. It is expected to predict an annual growth of more than 6.3% of China from 2018 to 2020, a mid-to-high rate that will satisfy the need to maintain domestic development and at the same time drive the global economy forward.
Second, China will underscore innovative growth. It is our core national development strategy. With a booming advanced manufacturing sector and with the industries moving up the value chain, China will find new ways to boost growth, through high-end consumption, innovation, green and low-carbon technology, sharing economy, modern supply chain and human capital services. Other significant aspects of China's economic modernisation include the internet, AI and big data. Obviously, such development trends offer more opportunities for cooperation between our countries.
Third, China will pursue opening up on all fronts. China will not close its door to the world, on the countrary, it will only become more and more open. We adopt policies to promote high-standard liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment, roll out a foreign investment management model nationwide based on pre-establishment national treatment and negative list, significantly ease market access and protect the legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors. Moreover, China is ready to explore the opening of a green channel for investment cooperation with Central and Eastern European countries including Estonia.
Fourth, China will be committed to win-win growth. China is a country of over 1.3 billion people. Its rising household income, expanding middle-income group and increasingly diversified consumption has ensured China's place as the most promising growth market in the world. China is also a major outward investor with abundant foreign exchange reserve and a growing number of companies who are both willing and able to explore the global market. China does not seek trade surpluses. We will import more competitive goods from other countries. In November 5-10, 2018, China will host the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai, which is a major initiative and action by China to promote trade liberalization and open up its market to the world.
Looking ahead, China stands ready to work together with Estonia to blaze a new path to development that is fair, open, comprehensive and innovative. Let us make the year of the Dog--which stands for friendship, fortune and power--as our new starting point, to achieve greater prosperity and a better future for China-Estonia relations.
Economic & Commercial Counsellor of Chinese Embassy in Estonia Wu Yan