Commerce Minister: next decade still golden times

The golden times of China's market capacity will last for at least another decade, said Bo Xilai, China's Commerce Minister.

Bo said this on September 8 at a forum during the Eighth China International Investment-trade Fair in Xiamen, Fujian Province. He sees great potential for cooperation with foreign capital on industry scaling-up, tech transfer, establishment of R&D centers and regional headquarters.

China offers a more transparent, familiar and convenient environment for foreign enterprises to facilitate their investment in the country. This is the result of significant reforms on its economic structure and management models since its WTO accession in 2001. Given this, Bo concluded that China represents a massive market which is still expanding.

He reminded the audience of the fact that the consumption in China approximated to 5 trillion RMB last year and some 9 trillion yuan was spent on production materials.

China's imports, he expected, would exceed 500 biliion USD this year. It was worth 400 USD last year. By 2010, the country will have bought 1 trillion USD from the global market. China has strong purchasing power in a number of products and fields.

Bo insisted that the country's domestic market was also growing. Chinese residents hold more than 1.2 trillion USD deposits. Experts estimate that by 2010 there will be 1oo million households along China's coastal areas and in the middle areas. As their average income is believed to reach 150,000 yuan per year at that time, they can afford housing and sedans.

It is particularly important that the demand from the 1.3 billion population in this developing country will keep increasing and last long. The fact that we still have many less developed areas promises great potential of demand boosted by our economic development, Bo pointed out.

He thought that was why his country made efforts on pushing forward the second round of DDA within the WTO. Regional cooperation between China and EU, US, Japan, South Korea, South-east Asian countries, Australia, Latin America, Africa and gulf nations, the Minister concluded, has been very active and encouraging optimism in the past years.

By People's Daily Online