Full text of Chinese VP Zhang Gaoli's address at opening dinner of 2013 Fortune Global Forum

Looking ahead, China's development is faced with unprecedented opportunities and challenges in the new century. The global environment, which features general stability, has provided us with favorable conditions for development. China has made tremendous accomplishments since the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially since the adoption of the reform and opening-up policy. This has laid a solid foundation for China's future development and also contributed to the development of the global economy. However, we are soberly aware that the profound repercussions of the global financial crisis cannot be eliminated in the short term, that destabilizing factors and uncertainties in the world economy are still on the rise, and that China also has to stand up to the test of striding over "the middle-income trap" and alleviating the stresses accumulated in the course of its long period of extensive growth. I know that many friends, both Chinese and foreign, including those present here tonight, are interested in how China will turn its ambitious blueprint into reality. Let me take this opportunity to offer my perspectives on that.

First, we must always adhere to the strategic thinking that development is of overriding importance, and endeavor to pursue sustained and healthy economic development. China is still the largest developing country in the world with its per-capita GDP ranking the 84th globally. China will get nowhere unless it develops itself, as development holds the key to solving all its problems. Yet China's development must be scientific, comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable. Statistics show that the nation's first-quarter GDP rose by 7.7 percent year-on-year. In the first four months of this year, employment in cities and towns increased by 4.7 million, 180,000 more than the same period last year, while consumer prices rose by 2.4 percent, down by 1.3 percentage points, and imports and exports grew by 14 percent, 8 percentage points higher than the the same period last year. All these figures indicate that the Chinese economy has been growing in a generally steady fashion, something that has not come by easily. We must take scientific development as our theme, focus on accelerating the transformation of the development model, make steady advancement in our work, and continue to adopt a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy. We must be good at bottom-line thinking, and always keep the larger picture in mind. We must never lay undue emphasis on the speed of growth. Instead, we must ensure steady development and work on that basis to solve problems, guard against inflation and keep risks under control. We need to concentrate on improving the quality and efficiency of development, and ensure the development moves ahead steadily and produces good results. We will work to simultaneously advance industrialization, IT-application, urbanization, and agricultural modernization. We will further expand consumer demand, foster new highlights of consumption, and improve the long-term mechanisms that support sustained consumption growth. We will try to bring into play the important role of rational investment in driving economic growth, and lend full support to the growth of high-tech, startup and export-oriented companies and companies of medium to small and micro sizes, in order to ensure that the Chinese economy is headed in the right direction in its growth.