Li Keqiang praises Chinese economy’s resilience at roundtable
Shanghai, China, Dec 7 (EFE).- Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang said before international institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund that his country had “strong resilience” to continue its economic development at a time of slowdown in growth, state media said Tuesday.
Xinhua news agency published Li’s statements from a Monday night virtual meeting with World Bank and IMF leaders, as well as the World Trade Organization, the International Labor Organization, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Financial Stability Board.
Li said his country has “confidence and capacity” to achieve “solid” economic development in the long term.
He spoke of the importance of market entities, adding that, especially in the case of small and medium enterprises and households that depend on self-employment, they have not yet fully recovered from Covid-19’s impact and are facing pressure such as rising raw material costs.
The premier spoke about the energy shortage that resulted in policies rationing electricity consumption in some important Chinese industrial centers since mid-September, derived from a rise in coal prices that already lost steam due to the “multiple steps” Beijing took.
Li said China would continue to advance its opening policies to “improve its business environment” despite some foreign business organizations continuing to criticize the slowness or inadequacy of measures and calling for equality to compete with local and state-owned companies.
“The good experience of years of practice serves to rely on ‘reform and openness’ to boost vitality and momentum and to weather downward pressures in the economy, while implementing sound macro policies,” Li told representatives of the six global economic institutions with which it held its sixth annual meeting.
Referring to the global situation, Li said the post-coronavirus economic recovery pace has “slowed” while factors of uncertainty and instability increase.
The premier called for “accelerating efforts” to solve supply and logistics problems through an “orderly” recovery of production capacity and the protection of the “security and stability” of industrial chains. EFE
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