(May 15, 2017)

Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China

Dear Colleagues,

We will now start our Roundtable Session One and discuss Policy Synergy for Closer Partnership.

The pursuit of economic development and a better life is not only the common aspiration of all peoples,  but also the source of power that drives world economic growth. As things stand now, countries are paying greater attention to growing the real economy. Some are vigorously advancing industrialization while others are pressing ahead with economic diversification. In this connection, we have seen a number of ambitious development strategies and cooperation plans which are tailor-made to suit the development needs of the countries and regions concerned. They include the Eurasian partnership, the Bright Road new economic policy and the Middle Corridor initiative, to name justafew.The United Nations for its part has come up with its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Major regional cooperation organizations have also formulated their own cooperation plans and platforms to advance regional economic integration and promote connectivity and infrastructure development. All this has created broad space for countries to pursue win-win development through international cooperation.

As a saying goes, “A single tree does not make a forest.” To  turn those ambitious blueprints into reality, itis important for us to enhance synergy of our policies and development strategies so as to complement each other and attain coordinated development. That is exactly what Belt and Road international cooperation aims to achieve. Over the past four years, more than 100 countries and international organizations have engaged in collaboration under the Belt and Road framework, contributing to a growing momentum of policy coordination and planning synergy among participating parties.

Under the current situation, the issue we must seriously address is how we should work in a spirit of partnership, how we can coordinate and synergize our macro policies and development strategies more effectively, what our converging interests are and where our practical cooperation should start with so that the mutual complementarity of our development strategies can guide and drive our economic cooperation.

I look forward to a free flow of  ideas in which we could share best practices, valuable experience and explore ways and modes of  future cooperation.

I  would like to take this opportunity to inform youof what I announced at the opening ceremony yesterday: China will contribute an additional RMB100 billion to the Silk Road Fund and encourage Chinese financial institutions to conduct overseas RMB fund business with an estimated amount of RMB300 billion. In the coming three years, China will provide assistance worth RMB60 billionto developing countries and international organizationsparticipating in the Belt and Road Initiative. I hope China’scommitment will lend new impetus to the Belt and Road Initiative.