Leaders, officials hail important role of GDI

GDI: China's role in global recovery after COVID seen as proactive

Leaders and senior officials from countries across the world have hailed the Global Development Initiative as a powerful tool to advance the prosperity of developing countries as President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message on the opening of a major conference on realizing the GDI.

A total of 158 countries and international organizations took part in the first high-level conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development in Beijing on Monday in either an offline or virtual format.

Xi noted that transformation of the world that is unseen in a century is unfolding at a faster pace, the world economy is struggling to recover and the global development agenda is facing challenges.

In September 2021, Xi put forward the GDI for the first time when addressing the general debate of the 76th United Nations General Assembly.

On Monday, Xi said he proposed this vision in order "to build consensus on cooperation and promote common development" and to help speed up implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

"I am pleased to see that with the joint participation of all parties, cooperation on the Global Development Initiative has yielded important early results and benefited many developing countries," he said.

Noting that development is a timeless theme for humanity, Xi said "shared development is an important path to building a better world".

As the largest developing country, China has always placed its own development within the larger context of human development and created new opportunities for the development of the world through its own development, he said.

China will continue to allocate more resources for global development cooperation, and will work with the international community to bring about more concrete results in advancing the GDI, in order to make new contributions to realizing the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals on schedule and to building a community with a shared future for mankind, he said.

Currently, over 100 countries and international organizations have expressed support for the GDI, and close to 70 countries have joined the Group of Friends of the GDI in the UN framework.

Beijing will take further action to support development as a priority agenda, better foster development projects, facilitate financing, diversify ways of cooperation, boost third-party collaboration and reinforce the role of young people, said Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee.

"No matter how the international situation may evolve, China will stay true to its status as a developing country, and stand firmly side by side with fellow countries of the South for shared development and joint revitalization," Wang said when addressing the conference.

The conference yielded key outcomes including the Beijing Statement, which calls for efforts to put development front and center in international cooperation.

Also released were two documents — The Guidelines on Global Development Project Pool and The Guidelines on Global Development Project Pool Financing.

Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said the event "will attract the world's attention, especially in echoing the calls made by most developing countries from Africa and Asia in pursuit of development".

"We also need joint efforts to safeguard our peace, development and cooperation. We need to understand that isolation and confrontation cannot and will never yield positive results," she said in a video speech.

Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen warned that the global economic situation and development "are still faced with increasingly complicated, grave economic, social and environmental issues".

"In this context, we have witnessed China's proactive participation in recovery in the post-pandemic era through advancing the region's integration as well as multilateralism", he said in a video speech.

Belarus was among the first countries to officially support the GDI and is a member of the Group of Friends of the GDI. Nikolai Snopkov, first deputy prime minister of Belarus, said that while the world is faced with geopolitical tension and crises in food and energy security, "it is disappointing to see some countries politicizing the development agenda, imposing restrictions on access to energy and technology rather than offering advices for tackling the current global challenges and threats".

He noted that the GDI vision takes care of all countries, including small nations, and added that "no countries should be left behind".