Ladies and gentlemen,
Friends,
Tonight, we are gathered here to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. On behalf of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Grenada, I wish to extend a warm welcome and appreciation for your presence. On this joyous occasion, I would like to share with you our joyhappiness in reviewing the extraordinary development of New China and looking forward to an even better tomorrow.
On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was born on a land of 9.6 million square kilometers, and an ancient country with a 5,000-year history of civilization was reborn and turned into a great socialist country. Seven decades after its founding, the People's Republic of China, under the firm leadership of Chinese Communist Partythe communist party of China and the Chinese government, the people of all ethnic groups in China have worked diligently and created a thriving new situation. The Chinese nation has made a great leap from standing up, becoming rich to becoming strong, and is striding on the new journey of great rejuvenation. The earthshaking changes that have taken place in our country are a shocking epic in the history of human development.
-- In the past 70 years, China has developed from a poor and backward country to the world's second largest economy, makingde historic strides in both hard and soft power. When New China was born, the economic foundation was extremely weak. In 1952, China's GDP was only 67.9 billion yuan (about equivalent to that-time the current value of 34 billion US dollars), with a per capita GDP of 119 yuan (about 60 US dollars). After a long period of struggleefforts, China's national economy continued to grow rapidly and its economic aggregate reached a new level. In 2018, the GDP reached 13.62 trillion US dollars, a 175-fold increase over 1952, with an average annual growth rate of 8.1%. It accounts for nearly 16% of the world economy and contributes about 18% to world economic growth annually. China's foreign exchange reserves stood at $3 trillion US dollars, ranking first in the world for 13 consecutive years. This year, the national GDP per capita of 15 major cities with total 200-million population is more than 20,000 US dollarsis expected to reach us $10,000, including more than 15 major cities with a population more than us $20,000.
-- In the past 70 years, China has developed from a backward agricultural country to a modernized one. The fundamental roleChina's of agriculture is continuously strengthened, dominance of playing a more fundamental role, industry sector is rapidly enhanced, effect of services sector in more dominant role, the service sector is playing an increasingly important in supporting the economy and society is gradually highlighted, and economic development is becoming more comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable. China has been producing thousand-folds of 's output of raw coal, steel and cement, ranking locking the first rank in the world. China has become a countryis now embodied with capacity of with aall industrial categories in the UN industrial classification. The output of more than 200 industrial products ranks first in the world, and the added value of the manufacturing industry has been ranked first in the world since 2010.
--In the past 70 years, China's basic industries and infrastructure construction havehas achieved a historic leap. The development of transportation has made remarkable achievements, and the aviation, railway and waterway transportation network extends in all directions. China's railway operating mileage reached 131,000 kilometers, of which high-speed railway reached 29,000 kilometers, accounting for more than 60% of the world's high-speed rail mileage. The construction of telecommunications infrastructure has been accelerated, the scale of postal and telecommunications industry continues to expand, and informational networking has come to the forecatches up rapidly. The construction of "Broadband China" has been accelerated, , with 1.31 billion mobile broadband users, and the world's largest mobile broadband network has basically been built. Big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, 5G and other modern information technologies are in the ascendant, and the construction of a new generation of high-speed, mobile, secure and ubiquitous information infrastructure has been accelerated. Energy supply capacity has been greatly improved, and the basic guarantee functionsupport and protection has been increasingly enhanced. The installed capacity of hydropowerhydro-power, wind power and solar power continues to expand, and China has become an active leader in non-fossil energy worldwide.
--In the past 70 years, China's urban and rural areas have undergone earth-shaking changes, and a new pattern of urban and rural economic and social development has formed step by step. Urbanization has improved significantly and urban development has become more colorful. From 1949 to 2019, the number of cities grew from 132 to 672. Rural infrastructure construction continued to be strengthened, and rural transportation and communications significantly improved. In rural areas, 99% of villages have access to roads, electricity, telephones and cable TV signals.
--In the past 70 years, China has succeeded in transforming a closed and semi-closed economy into a fully open economy. China has seized the opportunitopportunityies of globalization, developed friendly cooperation with other countries, and made great strides in "going global" instead of "bringing in" on a large scale. The scale of trade in goods jumped to the first place in the world. China firmly supports the multilateral trading system, actively promotes trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and promotes comprehensive development of multilateral economic and trade relations and regional economic cooperation. Foreign direct investment has increased substantially, and China has increasingly become a hot spot for global investment. Chinese enterprises have accelerated their outbound investment, strengthened the ability to participate in international division of labor, and raised their loutbound investment level. of outbound investment. The joint development of Belt Aand Road has brought about fruitful results in promoting connectivity of facilities and unimpeded trade.
--In the past 70 years, China's science and education industrysector has also grown steadily. from a backward position. Since 2013, China has become the world's second largest R&D investment country with the total number of R&D personnel and invention patent applications ranking first in the world for 6 and 8 consecutive years respectively. In 2018, the whole social research and experimental development expenditure was 297.382 billion US dollars, exceeding the average of 15 EU countries. China's scientific and technological strength has been significantly enhanced, and major scientific and technological achievements have emerged. The number of valid patents nationwide reached 8.38 million. China is in the forefront of the world in manned spaceflight, lunar exploration, quantum science, deep-sea exploration, supercomputingsuper-computing and satellite navigation. China's education has entered a period of comprehensive development, compulsory education has been continuously improved, higher education has been gradually strengthened, and the national schooling improves progressively. Since 1996, China's institutions of higher learning have enrolled 7 million students annually and continuously trained millions of engineering and technical personnel and management personnel, providing a large number of high-level human resources for the country's economic and social development. The overall development level of education has promotedjumped to the top of the world.
--In the past 70 years, China's social undertakings have progressed in an all-round way, a complete overturn of the backward situation on public cultural sector. . There are tens of thousands of sports centers, libraries, museums, cultural centers, art galleries and other facilities. Our capacity for providing public cultural services has grownis accumulating, and we have made great achievements in competitive sports and mass public sports. Environmental protection is strengthened. China's medical care, medical insurance, and medical services were further developed, and the nationwide medical insurance system was improved at a faster pace. Life expectancy increased from 35 years in the early days of foundation 1949 to 77.0 years in 2018. People's health is better than the average level of middle and high-income countries.
--In the past 70 years, the Chinese people have moved into a well-off society. The social security system was gradually established and improved the level of social security steadily improved. Basic old-agepension insurance covers more than a population of 900 million people, and medical insurance covers more than 1.3 billion people, basically realizing universalnation-wide medical insurance. China lifted 800 million people out of poverty, becoming the first developing country to reach the UN poverty reduction target and contributing over 70% to global poverty reduction.
China was the world's largest economy for 1600 years untill the middle of the 19th century. That is the beginning ofAfter then, China was being invaded and enslaved by imperialism and colonialism for more than 100 years. In just merely 70 years, since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese people have carried forward the spirit of diligence and creativity, given full play to wisdom, and created an unparalleled miracle in the history of world economic and social development. Now, China is going to regain its glorious historical position. This fully proves China is correct in choosing the path of socialism, China's economic and social development model is advanced, and China's political, economic and social system is successful. The Chinese people have every reason to be proud of the great achievements of New China.
Looking into the future, the Chinese people will rally closer around the Party Central Committee of the Communist Party with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, work hard with one heart and one mind, create a new situation in constructing socialism with Chinese characteristics, and forge ahead toward great renewrejuvenation of the Chinese nation. We are confident that by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, we will have built a great modern socialist country which is prosperous, democratic, civilized, harmonious and beautiful
Ladies and gentlemen, friends,
In the past 70 years, , China sticks to the road of peaceful development, resolutely safeguard state sovereignty and independence, territorial integrity, national and people's security.
China has always been firmly opposed to hegemonismhegemony, power politics and colonialism, safeguarded regional and world peace and security, upheld fairness and justice and acted as a guarantorguard of world peace. We do not seek hegemony, interfere in other countries' internal affairs, or seek colonialism.
China supports national independence and liberation movements of all countries in the world, supports the people of developing countries in following the path of independencet, and respects the right of each and every country to independently choose its development path. China firmly opposes racism and confrontation between civilizations and supports diversified development of world civilizations.
China is committed to have common development and progress with all other countries in the world. We oppose trade protectionism, unilateralism and trade bullying. andWe are committed to building and contributing to world economic development. China is always a contributor and facilitator of global development. China is also a proponent of a just and reasonable international order, upholds the international political and economic order, the multilateral system, the principles of international law, economic globalization.
Not only seek the happiness for the Chinese people, the cCommunist pParty of China and the Chinese government, also wantis willing to make greater contributions to people aroundll over the world. China is a core force in the cause of world progress. We are committed to forging a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation, and to build a global community with a shared future. We will propose more Chinese approaches, share more Chinese knowledgeexperience, promote win-win cooperation and construct a satisfactory together future.
Ladies and gentlemen, friends,
Since resumption of diplomatic ties with Grenada in 2005, we have enjoyed even stronger links in our political mutual trust, businesseconomic cooperation, and people-to-people exchange. In order to help the Grenadian people promote economic and social development, improve living livelihood, China has provided sincere and selfless support within its capacity in aspects of economic development, agriculture, education, human resources training, sports, public health and housing construction for low-income families. Two countries also have supported each other in regional and international affairs, and played an important role in maintaining the peace and security of region and world as well as international order.
In the future, we will continue to support Grenada's economic and social development and promote win-win cooperation. The Chinese government and the Grenadian government will jointly hold "China-Caribbean Conference on BRI Implementation " at the end of October. With the principle of Consultation, Contribution and Shared Benefits, promotingte BRI to connect with the national development plans of the Caribbean countries, China welcome Caribbean countries to board the express train of its development, so that we can all develop together.