The year of 2008 marks the 30th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up drive, commonly regarded as a watershed in China’s development.

The decision to open up the once sealed off country and reform its struggling economy was made at the 3rd plenary session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which started on Dec. 18, 1978.

The policy, pioneered by late leader Deng Xiaoping, has turned the once poverty-stricken country into one of the world’s largest economies.

“Through the reform and opening-up, China has lifted about 400 million people out of poverty, who now have new quality of life. That’s a remarkable achievement,” Mushahid said.

Mushahid, also secretary general of the opposition party Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q), first visited China in the 1970s and has paid many visits since then.

Mushahid was impressed by the tremendous changes in the past three decades, especially in the aspects of people’s life, infrastructure, high technology, and even language.

“At that time in 1972, very few people spoke English. But now it’s very common language,” said Senator Mushahid.

Mushahid attributed China’s achievements to the CPC’s leadership, saying the party has played a “unique” role in bringing “the world’s most populous country” to the world’s fourth largest economy.

“The ideology of the Communist Party of China is based on humanity, not based on control or dominance,” said Mushahid, adding that China has not used “imperialistic power” but pursued peaceful development.

“The Chinese society is very pluralistic. China gives rights to the minorities and different communities, who all have opportunity to participate in the process of China,” he said.

Mushahid also termed the “one country, two systems” policy as “unique contribution to modern history,” saying Hong Kong and Macao returned to China in 1997 and 1999 respectively not by force, but “by diplomacy, negotiations and agreements.”

With regard to China’s stimulus package plan to revive economy in the face of current global economy, Mushahid expressed admiration for China’s contribution to the world’s development.

“The stability of China’s economy sends a message of stability to the Asian and world economy,” he said.

“We share the success of China as a neighbor. We want to learn from China’s example, and we also want to benefit from what China had done in the past years,” Mushahid said.

In the meeting, Chen Deming, the minister of the Ministry of Commerce of the PRC, delivered a working report named “Enhance Confidence and Consolidate Works to Keep the Development of Commercial Businesses Efficient and Rapid”.

He expressed that, in 2008, under the right leadership of the State Council, the cadres and staff in all the commercial systems of China focused on their own jobs, served the overall situation, effectively managed the server natural disasters and the impacts brought by the national financial crisis, and achieved an efficient and rapid development of commercial businesses. In 2008, the domestic market was active and booming. In the first 11 months, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 9.7759 trillion yuan, the year-on-year growth rate is 21.9%, and it was the fastest-growing period in the last ten years. The trend that the prices of commodities increased fast was effectively restrained. The increment of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) dropped to 2.4%, and it is expected that the increment of the Consumer Price Index of the whole year will be limited within 6%. The foreign trade increased steadily. In the first 11 months, the total export-import volume was US $ 2.3794 trillion, which had increased by 20.9%; the total export volume was US $ 1.3172 trillion, which had increased 19.3%; the total import volume was US $ 1.0612 trillion, which had increased by 22.8%. It is expected that the total export-import volume of the whole year will exceed US $ 2.5 trillion, which would have increased by about 18% over last year. The absorbed foreign capitals kept on increasing. In the first 11 months, the total amount of the foreign capitals absorbed was US $ 86.4 billion, which had increased by 26.3%, and it is expected that the total amount of the foreign capitals absorbed in the whole year would exceed US $ 90 billion; China has been the largest foreign capital absorbing country in all the developing countries for 17 years in succession. The capitals that were invested in foreign countries and the cooperation with foreign countries were both accelerated. In the first three quarters, the total amount of the non-financial direct investments to foreign countries was US $ 32.7 billion, which had increased by 1.5 times, and the accumulative total assets of the Chinese-funded enterprises in foreign countries exceeded US $ 300 billion. In the first 11 months, the total finished turnover of the contracted projects in foreign countries was US $ 47.1 billion, which had increased by 42%; the total finished turnover of the foreign labor cooperation was US $ 7.2 billion, which had increased by 24.2%. The commercial system had achieved remarkable successes in coping with important events, guaranteeing the supplies of markets, enhancing the construction of market system, expanding the domestic consumptions, optimizing the pattern of imports and exports, promoting the healthy development of foreign trades, improving the environment for investments, upgrading the quality of the absorbed foreign capitals, enhancing the management, standardizing the services, accelerating the development of investments to foreign countries and the cooperation with foreign countries, carrying out multilateral and bilateral cooperation, solving the disputes in international trades, deeply studying and practicing the scientific outlook on development, and enhancing the construction of itself.

Chen Deming pointed out that the severe impact brought by the economic depression of the whole world will still go on, so, the domestic and foreign circumstances that the development of Chinese commercial businesses will face in 2009 will be much more complex. The situation for exports will be quite severe. It will be much harder for domestic consumptions to increase. Much more difficulties will be met when absorbing foreign capitals. The situation of trade frictions will not be optimistic. But the basic development situation and the long-term development trend will not change, and there will also be a lot of advantages for keeping the commercial businesses developing steadily and rapidly. First, the positive financial policies and quite easing monetary policies implemented by the government of China will have promoting effects on stabilizing the exports and expanding the consumptions. Especially, the policies such as raising the export rebates, improving the processing trades, adjusting the customs duties, supporting the developments of the medium and small-sized enterprises and so on, will directly promote the foreign trades to develop steadily. Second, the developments of industrialization and urbanization and the quick upgrading of industrial structure and consumption pattern of China will bring strong domestic demands for economic development. Third, the comprehensive national strength of China is rising, the supporting system for the industries of China is quite integrated, the financial system is steady and health generally, the financing supply is sufficient, the qualities of labor forces are increasingly rising, the enterprises’ adaptive abilities to the changing market and environment are being increasingly enhanced, and the systems for allocating the resources in the market are being improved gradually. Fourth, the industrial chain of export is quite integrated, and the comparative advantage is clear. Most of the export products are essentials of lives, and the demand for them is not quite flexible. The strategy of market diversification has got enterprises acquired abundant experiences for exploring international markets. Multilateral and bilateral economic and trade relationships are being improved increasingly, and the international economic and trade circumstance is generally advantageous. The economic adjustment of the world will bring many new opportunities for China to accelerate the upgrading of economic structure, absorb advanced technologies and personnel and use the resources of foreign countries.

Chen Deming emphasized that our thoughts and activities must be practically unified with the analysis and judgment made by the central government on the foreign and domestic economic situations, unified with the decisions and arrangements made by the central government, and unified with the requirements that the scientific outlook on development ask for on the commercial works. Our confidence and determinations for successfully finishing the commercial works must be confirmed, the difficulties and challenges that we are facing must be adequately estimated, and every arrangement made by the economic work meeting of the central government must be firmly implemented. The domestic demands must be positively expanded, and the growth of foreign trades must be kept steady. Meanwhile, the transition of development pattern and the adjustment of economic structure must be accelerated, the stamina of development could be enhanced, and great efforts must be made to achieve a rapid and efficient commercial-business development.

Chen Deming said eight aspects of commercial works must be successfully done in 2009. First, the construction of circulation network must be enhanced to expand the consumptions of urban and rural residents. The construction of the circulation network in rural areas must be accelerated, and the circulation networks in urban areas must be improved continuously. The works of promoting home appliances in rural areas must be firmly done, the circulation network for the renewable resources must be standardized and developed, and a large batch of distribution enterprises must be positively developed. Second, the commodity circulation must be boosted, and market adjustment and control must be improved. The monitoring to operation must be enhanced, the guiding function of the information must reinforced, the connections between productions and sales must be enhanced, and circulation of agricultural products must be promoted. The reserves system must be improved, and great efforts must be made to guarantee “collecting and reserving them in boomer harvest time, putting them into market in poor harvest time”. The market orders must be regulated, and the fair competition in market must be safeguarded. Third, the steady growth of imports and exports must be maintained, and the transition of foreign trade pattern must be accelerated. The support of tax policies and financial policies must be enhanced, great efforts must be made to explore the emerging markets, the export commodity composition must be optimized, the service trades must be greatly developed, and the imports must be positively enlarged. Fourth, the scale of foreign capitals that are used must be stabilized, and the quality of the foreign capitals that are used must be raised. The investment environment must be improved and perfected, the composition of the foreign capitals that are used must be optimized, the geographical distribution of foreign capitals must be improved, and the utilization patterns of foreign capitals must be innovated. Fifth, actively and steadily push the development of the capital invested in foreign countries and the cooperation with foreign countries, the level of economic cooperation with foreign countries must be raised. The steps to develop the investment to foreign countries must be accelerated, great efforts must be made to undertake contracted project in foreign countries and carry on the labor service cooperation in foreign countries, and facilitation of investing in foreign countries and the cooperation with foreign countries, and the system for supervising the investment in foreign countries and the cooperation with foreign countries must be improved. Sixth, multilateral and bilateral economic and trade cooperation must be deepened, and outstanding exotic environment must be constructed. The multilateral and bilateral economic and trade relationships must be enhanced and improved, the Doha Round must be positively and increasingly promoted, the construction of free trade areas must be promoted positively and steadily, the opening-up in border areas must be accelerated, the economic and trade cooperation among the Chinese Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao must be promoted, the works of providing assistances to foreign countries must be reinforced and improved. Seven, trade friction must be properly managed to guarantee the safeties of domestic industries. All the operations must be planed as a whole, so risk of trade friction will be reduced. The strengths of all the aspects must be wholly arranged to raise the ability for coping with trade frictions. The trade remedy must be carried out according to the laws, and the effect of trade remedy must be raised. The scientific outlook on development must be deeply studied and practiced, and the systems for commercial works must be further constructed.

Over 300 people including the representatives from the relevant departments of China’s State organs, every province, autonomous region and municipality directly under the Central Government of China, the cities specifically designated in the state plan, the management departments of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, the national-class development areas, and the Border Economic Cooperation Zones, attended the meeting. And during the meeting, the representatives carefully discussed such issues as coping with the financial crisis, expanding the domestic consumption demands, stabilizing the growth of foreign trades, and accelerating the adjustment of economic structure and the transition of development pattern.