Joint efforts to promote global sustainable, balanced economic growth

Jiang Zengwei, chair of B20 2016 and chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

China, as chair of the G20, is hosting the G20 Leaders Summit for the first time. It is being held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Sept 4 and 5.

As an important opening event for this year's summit, the 2016 G20 business summit, known as the B20, will be held from Saturday to Sunday.

The G20 leaders highly value the input of the international business community into their considerations. President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony of this year's B20 Summit and deliver a keynote speech.

Other leaders of G20 members, including Argentina, South Africa, Turkey, Australia and Canada, will also have discussions with representatives of the business community at the B20 Summit.

The event has attracted more than 800 delegates from scores of countries and regions, as well as international organizations.

Among them are the heads of major international organizations, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization.

The B20 Summit has also attracted wide attention and participation from the international business community.

More than 600 companies have sent representatives to the summit, many of them on the Fortune 500 list or among the top 500 Chinese businesses.

As a result, this year's session has become the largest in the history of the B20.

The B20 Summit will feature in-depth discussions on the four major topics on the G20 agenda－breaking a new path for global economic growth, developing more effective and efficient global economic and financial governance, encouraging robust international trade and investment, and promoting inclusive and interconnected development.

At present, the global economy is in an important transition period. While we are facing huge and urgent challenges, there are also abundant opportunities to be seized.

The B20 plays an important role in the G20 process. It is also a unique platform for business leaders from major economies to discuss global governance and push forward economic growth. Accordingly, the B20, on behalf of the international business community, shoulders the critical task of providing G20 leaders with recommendations for boosting economic growth and employment worldwide and improving global economic governance.

The international community is expecting both the G20 and the B20 to play their roles in finding solutions to the global economic problems and propose initiatives to inject more vitality into global economic recovery.

Thus, this year's B20 has focused on the themes and key agenda of the G20 Hangzhou summit. After comprehensive consultations with the international business community, six major areas－financing to boost growth, trade and investment, infrastructure, development of small and medium-sized enterprises, employment and anti-corruption－were reviewed by the B20. Corresponding taskforces were established to review these topics and a special purpose forum on anticorruption was also held.

Over the past seven months, we have organized more than 50 work meetings, seminars and exchange activities between business participants in the B20 and G20 members. We visited 14 countries and invited about 3,900 people to research and discuss the B20 proposals to be submitted to the G20 leaders.

Based on the above efforts, we have compiled the B20 2016 Policy Recommendations to the G20, which will be officially handed over to G20 leaders later this week at the B20 Summit.

The report makes 20 policy recommendations addressing the G20 Leaders Summit themes that are specific and actionable.

We have taken comprehensive steps to communicate and promote these proposals to the G20 and other interested countries as well as within the international business community. Given the potential effect of these recommendations on global economic recovery, we hope they will all be adopted and implemented by the G20 members.

After nearly a year of hard work, the B20 has reached its harvest season. We expect the participants at the B20 Summit to exchange views and contribute ideas and solutions for attaining robust, sustainable and balanced global economic growth. Their discussions will also shape the further development of the B20.

The author is the chair of B20 2016 and chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.