Ten years after the global financial crisis, the world economy once again stands at a crossroad. It showed some signs of recovery in 2017, yet tended to weaken in 2018. The reason is mainly the protectionism and unilateralism of some countries, primarily the United States, which has led to an increase in international trade and investment disputes, that have in turn affected the global industrial structure and financial stability.

The current problems in the world economy highlight the importance and urgency of strengthening policy coordination and cooperation in global governance platforms such as the G20, and put forward new requirements for the policy choices of countries, especially major economies.

New impetus for world economic growth needs to be explored through reform and innovation. The lack of new growth drivers is the main reason for the current weak global economic growth. It is the right choice to seek new impetus from reform and innovation. Driven by emerging technologies such as cloud computing, the internet of things, artificial intelligence and nano technology, a new industrial revolution is under way. Countries need to accelerate reforms, encourage and protect the innovations of enterprises and allow innovation results to be widely applied to benefit more countries and more people.

Improved global governance is needed to promote an open environment for innovation. In recent years, some real progress has been made in global governance reforms, such as the establishment of the G20 after the outbreak of the international financial crisis. However, in many important areas, the existing governance institutions have not evolved to meet the needs of the times. Reform of the World Trade Organization is necessary, to ensure the effectiveness of multilateral trade rules, regulate the trade policies of all members and constrain trade protectionism.

The spirit of partnership should always be kept in mind and differences should be handled properly. Facing the complex and ever-changing global market environment and potential risks, countries should adhere to this spirit, actively coordinate their macroeconomic policies and effectively control their differences and risks to ensure the long-term stability and prosperity of the world economy. In the late 1920s, individual countries unilaterally imposed import tariffs for their own interests, triggering tariff wars and continuing the global economic recession for many years. This painful lesson tells us that the more serious the crisis, the more we need to strengthen cooperation. It is inevitable that countries with various national conditions and in various development stages should have different interest demands on some issues. The key is to respect and trust each other, negotiate on an equal footing, seek common ground while shelving differences, expand consensus, and jointly seek solutions to problems.

At the G20 Summit in Osaka, President Xi Jinping announced that China will further open up its market, actively expand imports, continuously improve the business environment, fully implement equal treatment and vigorously promote economic and trade negotiations. These five major initiatives are China's contribution to help build a high-quality world economy.

China will further open up its market and provide foreign-invested companies opportunities to share the country's long-term development dividends. In recent years, China has implemented a new round of high-level opening up and promoted the formation of a new pattern of comprehensive opening up. The 2018 edition of the negative lists for foreign investment access were reduced by about three-fourths compared with the 2011 editions. The 2019 editions further shorten the lists and further open up the agricultural, mining, manufacturing and service sectors, providing an important opportunity for foreign-invested companies to share in China's huge market and development dividends.

China will actively expand imports to make tangible contributions to global economic growth. In 2018, China's imports of goods reached $2.1 trillion, an increase of 15.8 percent. China's expansion of imports is a tangible contribution to the growth of its partners and the world economy, as it can be directly translated into the needs for production and exports of its trading partners. China has a huge market of nearly 1.4 billion people and a middle-income population comprising more than 400 million people. As the level of economic development increases, the middle-income group will also expand and there will be huge growth in the demand for foreign goods and services.

China will continue to improve the business environment and further improve the level of intellectual property protection. In recent years, China has taken the international high-level business environment evaluation standard as its bench mark, continuously strengthened infrastructure construction, and launched reform to streamline administration to improve its business environment. The World Bank's 2019 Doing Business Report shows that China's business environment has improved significantly, moving up from 78th in 2018 to the 46th in the rankings of 190 economies, with significant improvement made in most sub-indices. The new foreign investment legal system to be implemented on January 1 next year will introduce a tort punitive damages system, strengthen civil judicial and criminal protection and improve the level of intellectual property protection, which will elevate China's business environment to a higher level.

China will also fully implement equal treatment for all types of enterprises. The Foreign Investment Law, which will be implemented on January 1 next year, establishes a pre-entry national treatment plus negative list management system in the form of national legislation. It clearly stipulates that "issues not included in the negative list for foreign investment access will be treated based on the principle of equal treatment for domestic and foreign investment". This means that China will completely abolish market access restrictions except on its negative lists, and that in the post-access stage, all types of enterprises registered in China will be treated equally. The complaints mechanism for foreign-funded enterprises is also to be further strengthened. This will undoubtedly create a more stable, transparent, predictable and fair market environment.

The author is former director-general of the Research Department of Foreign Economic Relations at the Development Research Center of the State Council and chief economist of Development Research Think Tank. 

The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

All rights reserved. Copying or sharing of any content for other than personal use is prohibited without prior written permission.