Expo to drive global economic development

Stabilizing growth is a common challenge confronting all countries at a time when global growth forecasts are being lowered almost every month. Given this fact, promoting higher-level opening-up is the best way to spur sustainable development. And that is exactly what President Xi Jinping pledged to do in his keynote speech at the second China International Import Expo in Shanghai on Nov 5.

As the biggest exporter and second-largest importer, China is now in a better position to help promote globalization, stabilize the world market and contribute more to global economic growth. Although China started contributing to global growth in the 1980s, the world appreciated its role in earnest only after the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

For example, China's coefficient of variation in the annual GDP growth rate was 0.35, the lowest among East Asian economies, from 1980 to 2001 according to the International Monetary Fund and the People's Bank of China. Without China and Japan, East Asia's overall coefficient of variation in GDP growth was 0.49; with China added, it was 0.29 and with Japan added it was 0.38.