China will continue to be a land of opportunities and an engine of global growth and stability, even as the world faces rising geopolitical challenges and uncertainties, Chinese Premier Li Qiang said at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s (AIIB) Annual Meeting in Beijing.
“China remains the country that contributes the greatest impetus to global economic growth, and the most significant source of certainty for world peace and development,” he said on Thursday.
Li’s remarks came a day after he told the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin that China’s growth would remain “at a relatively fast speed” and that the country would “do its utmost” to address challenges facing the global economy.
Despite mounting external challenges, China has shown resilience, Li said, citing its solid performance in the first two quarters of this year.
He pointed to the 5.4 per cent year-on-year GDP growth in the first quarter, which he called a hard-won achievement. Beijing has set an annual GDP target of about 5 per cent this year.
“China’s economy will remain a hotbed of opportunity for the global economy in the years to come,” he added.
As China remains embroiled in an unpredictable trade war with the United States, Beijing has rolled out stimulus measures to stabilise financial markets and fuel consumption – including cuts to benchmark interest rates, reductions in banks’ reserve requirement ratios and trade-in programmes to boost household spending.
At the AIIB meeting, Li praised the bank’s achievements over the past decade, saying it would play a greater role in supporting members’ growth amid rising geopolitical tensions, unilateralism and protectionism.
“Economic globalisation is a historical trend that cannot be reversed,” he said.
Li also urged the bank to strengthen its alignment with the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, two China-led programmes.
Proposed by China in late 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative aims to improve trade and economic integration across Asia, Europe and Africa, while the Global Development Initiative, announced in 2021, focuses on poverty alleviation, food security and climate change – building on the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Xu Tianchen, senior China economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said the world faces a funding shortage for infrastructure projects, exacerbated by Washington’s cuts to foreign aid. As a result, the role of the AIIB would become even more important, he added.
One potential challenge, Xu said, was political pressure from the US and some other countries, which may condition aid and financing upon recipient countries avoiding China or China-led institutions.
As a China-initiated bank, the AIIB has shown a willingness to finance projects often shunned due to political risks, said Jamus Lim, associate professor of economics at ESSEC Business School.
“As the world continues to Balkanise into regional blocs, should the AIIB choose to refine its target focus on Africa and Asia, and retain its expertise in hard infrastructure lending, it will have the ability to be a developmental influence that would rival that of the Asia Development Bank and African Development Bank,” he said.
Additional reporting by Luna Sun