GLOBAL TRADE AND INVESTMENT PROMOTION SUMMIT

Good afternoon, friends — 

I start with a strong claim: trade and investment are not separate from development. 

They are vital engines, integral for creating jobs, raising incomes, expanding opportunity and accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Your Excellency Vice President, 

Distinguished Chairman, 

Your Excellency Mme Vice-President, 

Excellencies, 

Ladies and gentlemen, 

We are at a crisis moment, when developing countries face tighter fiscal space, rising debt burdens, climate shocks and declining access to traditional development finance. 

The development conversation can no longer, therefore, be tied to the limiting and declining idea of “traditional” aid. 

It must centre on how trade, investment, technology, finance, and productive capacity can deliver sustainable development at scale. 

And all of these powered by innovation. 

Friends — 

Trade’s centrality to development was an integral message from the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development, held last year in Sevilla. 

Thank you, Mme. Vice President, for Spain’s leadership through the Summit and onwards. 

The Sevilla Commitment reaffirmed international trade as an indispensable engine for inclusive growth, poverty eradication and sustainable development. 

But it also recognized the barriers many developing countries still face in integrating into regional and global value chains, moving into higher value-added production, accessing trade finance and using digital technologies. 

And Sevilla diagnosed – in fact, I think I should risk saying it indicted! – that present fractures in the multilateral trade system are a major systemic crisis affecting development. 

Friends — 

That is why this Forum is so relevant. 

Its focus on new quality productive forces, resilient industrial and supply chains, artificial intelligence and deeper services-manufacturing integration goes directly to how future growth must become more inclusive, sustainable and development-oriented. 

China’s preponderant role as both global innovator and global trading partner make it essential that it exert leadership in gearing trade, investment and innovation towards sustainable development. 

My thanks, therefore, to the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade for convening us today. 

This Summit further demonstrates China’s strong commitment to high-quality and high-level opening-up, win-win cooperation and multilateralism. 

China’s scale, industrial capacity, digital innovation and ever-expanding links with developing countries continue to create opportunities for shared development. 

Your Excellency Vice President HAN, this was amongst the points you powerfully made at last year’s Summit. 

China’s landmark decision to offer zero-tariff treatment to imports from 53 African countries vividly illustrates this. 

Yet the greatest development impact will only come if this access is matched with investment in African value addition, local processing, logistics, quality infrastructure and decent jobs. 

The opportunity is not only for Africa to export more. 

It is to export better. 

As Ambassador Nardos Bekele-Thomas of the African Union noted in a keynote speech in Beijing last month, the true opportunity of the historic Zero-Tariff offer [AND I QUOTE] 

“lies in using this opening to move more African goods further up the value chain … to allow the continent to retain more value before export.” 

Friends — 

The Hainan Free Trade Port also points to new directions. 

As Hainan advances its role in trade facilitation, services, logistics, investment and connectivity, it can become an important bridge between China and international partners. 

Linked with wider regional integration, including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and other free trade agreements, platforms such as Hainan can provide developing countries better access to markets, capital, technology and know-how. 

But friends — 

Recent years have reminded us that global interconnectivity brings both opportunity and vulnerability. 

Pandemics, resurgent conflicts, climate events, shipping disruption and commodity price shocks rapidly hurt food security, energy access, inflation, jobs and livelihoods. 

Supply chain resilience is therefore not just a commercial issue. 

It is a vital development issue, a human security issue. 

So: supply chains must be sustainable, inclusive and trusted. 

They should support the green transition, allow SMEs to participate and help developing countries build productive capacity rather than remain locked into low-value segments. 

AI represents a second challenge. 

It’s impact on trade and investment is growing fast.  

As AI becomes more central to trade, logistics, customs, finance and manufacturing, it must be governed in ways that are fair, transparent, safe and accessible. 

So that the digital divide narrows, not widens. 

Friends —  

These are all areas where the United Nations and China can contribute together. 

The UN can bring global norms, sustainable development expertise, convening power and country-level experience, all in support of trade and investment from China that advances the SDGs. 

We can help connect policy discussions with practical development priorities. 

And as China’s trade-driven partnership for development grows more and more, the UN can work with Chinese partners to share experience internationally, while ensuring that cooperation is grounded in openness, mutual benefit, sustainability and the principle of leaving no one behind. 

Friends — 

The task is clear. 

We must make trade and investment not only larger, but better aligned with sustainable development. 

And we can do this by continuing to make innovation more inclusive and global supply chains more resilient, greener and more beneficial as one vital component in building a community with a shared future for all humankind. 

Thank you.