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China's market thriving, Wen tells investors

(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2006-09-13 10:47

China's market is thriving and has tremendous potential for growth, Premier Wen Jiabo told a business summit in Finland yesterday.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao speaks during the start of the EU-China Business Summit in Helsinki September 12, 2006. [Reuters]

Wen told the 2006 China-Europe business summit that China's economy has grown at an average annual rate of 9.6 percent over the past 28 years and is now the fourth largest in the world with a gross domestic product of US$2.23 trillion.

He added that the Chinese economy had continued to maintain a fast yet steady rate of growth in the first half of this year, with the country's gross domestic product increasing 10.9 percent year on year.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attends the start of the EU-China Business Summit in Helsinki September 12, 2006. [Xinhua]

"This has led to the rapid expansion of China's trade, both internal and international, and brought about fundamental changes in the size and structure of China's market," Wen said.

China's foreign trade amounted to US$1.42 trillion last year, making China the third-largest trading nation in the world, Wen said.

"By carrying out trade and economic cooperation with other countries, China has obtained capital, technologies and management expertise to meet its own needs and facilitated economic restructuring," he told the meeting.

"Foreign investors, for their part, have also gained big profits from such cooperation," Wen said.

Between 1990 and 2005, foreign companies operating in China remitted more than US$280 billion in profits back home.

By entering the Chinese market, companies from the European Union have secured a favorable strategic position in global competition, Wen told the business gathering.