TWO-day China Development Forum (CDF) 2025, that ended on March 24, set the tone of global oneness to let world steer toward global development for a new stage of balanced, coordinated and inclusive growth in face of rising trends of protectionism, unilateralism and decoupling.
From the onset to conclusion, Chinese leadership put the best foot forward to get the narrative across that future economic survival lies in partnership instead competition.
This year’s forum, with the theme of “unleashing development momentum for stable growth of global economy,” that attracted more than 100 representatives both from home and abroad, including entrepreneurs, government officials, experts, scholars and representatives of international organizations, is expected to chart a fresh blueprint of win-win cooperation.
General impression is that with the endeavours of soft image building of Chinese philosophy advocated by President Xi Jinping by its vision of Global Development Initiative (GDI), mega event has successfully presented new face of “global development mechanism” urging international players to shrug off old trodden paths of unipolar world.
It makes sense that such sincere development wisdom will leave lasting imprints on the minds of foreign companies.
Expanding higher-standard opening up and stabilizing foreign trade and investment regardless of changes in the external environment, CDF has beefed up its commitment to steadily expand institutional opening up and take the initiative to open wider and advance multilateral opening up in a well-ordered way, so as to promote reform and development through greater openness.
Chinese Commerce Ministry pledged to continue to bolster policies for stabilizing foreign trade and support enterprises in securing orders, exploring new markets, promoting cross-border e-commerce by improving logistics services for cross-border delivery and boosting development of overseas warehouses.
As a part of ease of doing business for the facilitation of foreign companies, CDF has become staunch voice of cultivating new growth drivers, such as green trade and digital trade and support localities where conditions permit in developing new types of offshore trade.
It is heartening to note that top executives of foreign companies have shown strong admiration for China’s “Global Development Agenda,” which is set to reshape the futures of both the global West and South.
Roland Busch, President and CEO of Siemens AG, praised China’s contribution to global economic growth and the green transition during his opening address at the China Development Forum 2025 (CDF) in Beijing.
He emphasized China’s focus on high-tech, efficiency and quality growth as key drivers in addressing global challenges and commended the country’s efforts to reform its economic operating system to create a fairer business environment.
Busch also stressed the importance of companies, supported by governments, building powerful ecosystems to turn challenges into opportunities and promote sustainable common prosperity.
Former Australian State Premier Daniel Andrews echoed this sentiment, lauding China’s progress in renewable energy as a transformative model.
He noted that while the US remains embroiled in tariff disputes, China and Australia are forging a new path toward global sustainability through pragmatic collaboration.
As China works in collaborative cohesion on global chessboard seeking spiral action and results, ahead of CDF, China has already won the hearts of world by boosting the country’s visa-free policies.
According to the National Immigration Administration, China recorded 14.37 million cross-border trips during the Spring Festival holiday season, a 6.3-percent increase from a year earlier.
About one million of these trips were made by foreign nationals, a 22.9-percent year-on-year increase.
Right now, the global economic recovery is on the go-slow mode, the confrontational trade ambience has not ceased to exit and global unity is yet to be restored wriggling out of clouds of antagonism in international arena.
However, the convening of the forum has provided ideas to navigate out of the haze.
Development is the path to economic growth, the cornerstone of people’s happiness and the antidote to conflicts.
While certain countries are busy building walls and drawing lines, caught in the quagmire of the “zero-sum game” mentality, China insisted on paving the way and building bridges and extends a sincere invitation to the world by “comprehensively releasing the kinetic energy of development.
Since development is the common aspiration of people from all countries and China is becoming a powerful magnetic field for forging consensus on development.
Many people have two prominent feelings about this year’s CDF.
One is more “new friends” are attending this year’s event which sees multinational enterprises from 21 countries.
Business executives from US companies Apple and Pfizer, Europe’s Siemens and BMW, South Korea’s Samsung, Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group, as well as companies in Malaysia, Brazil and other Global South countries, are actively participating in the forum.
From manufacturing, finance to services, the international business community’s “leaders” and “new forces” have gathered in Beijing.
To date, China has granted 13 foreign-invested companies access to value-added telecom services, over 40 foreign-funded biotechnology projects have kicked off and three new wholly foreign-owned hospitals have been approved for operation.
The China Development Forum 2025 has taken everybody by storm as it came up with a number of “new forces” in China’s development, such as Unitree Robotics, Horizon Robotics and RedNote.
As China transforms itself from the “global factory” to the “source of innovation,” the public goods provided by China’s new quality productive forces are increasing the country’s appeal in the landscape of an open world.
—The writer is contributing columnist.(yaseerkhan@hotmail.com)
