Your Excellency Chairman Luo Zhaohui, Mr. Siddharth Chatterjee,

Your Excellencies Ministers and Fellow Ambassadors,

Dear Colleagues, Friends,

First of all, on behalf of the organizers, I wish to extend my warmest welcome to our dear guests from the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative, UN Member States, and UN agencies. Today, we gather here to review together the progress in the GDI implementation, to discuss together the direction of future cooperation, and to build new consensus and take new steps together in accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This year we will have the mid-term review of SDGs, and in September, the UN will hold a SDG Summit. As we speak, the world today is fraught with intertwined challenges and crises, and is faced with a new normal of instability and uncertainty. The international community must come together to tide over the trying times and bring the implementation of the SDGs back on track.

As the world's largest developing country, China is making unremitting efforts to this end. We are striving to bring more certainty to a world of changes and turbulence. In September 2021, President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative, which was warmly received by the international community. 

Since then, China has rolled out many measures to implement the GDI, and practical cooperation under the GDI framework has been in full swing. In January 2022, the Group of Friends of the GDI was officially established, and its membership has now reached nearly 70 countries. The Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund and the Global Development Promotion Center have been put in place, and progress is being made in increasing investment in the China-UN Peace and Development Fund and setting up an open-ended pool of GDI projects.

The GDI is a global public good provided by China. Based on China’s own development experience, the Initiative is aimed to promote common development and build a shared future. The 20th National Congress of the CPC proposed to advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization. We believe China’s new progress in its modernization will provide new development opportunities for other countries and promote the building of a community with a shared future for humankind.

China will continue to play its role as an engine of world economy. China has become a major trading partner of more than 140 countries and regions, and contributed over 30% to world economic growth for ten consecutive years. At present, the Chinese economy is stabilizing and picking up with good momentum. 

A number of international institutions have revised up their growth forecasts for China this year. According to the latest data, China's economy grew by 4.5% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2023. As China further opens up at a higher level, the dividends of its super size market and domestic demand will continue to manifest. This will add strong momentum to the global economic recovery and growth.

China will continue to share its development experience with other countries. China has completed the building of a moderately prosperous society on schedule, and achieved the SDG on poverty reduction ten years ahead of schedule, setting a good example for implementing the 2030 Agenda. 

On the new journey of Chinese modernization, we will vigorously promote high-quality development, foster a new development paradigm, seek harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature, actively address climate change, bring the 1.4 billion-plus people into a modern society, and achieve common prosperity for all our people. All these will provide useful experience for sustainable development of all countries. 

We will actively support and help other developing countries to speed up development and achieve industrialization and modernization. In doing so, we are offering China’s solutions and strength to narrow the development gap between developed and developing countries.

China will continue to provide more public goods to the international community. In pursuing a Chinese path toward modernization, we have always placed our own development in the bigger picture of human development, and have always combined the interests of the Chinese people with the common interests of people around the world. 

China will work closely with all partners to implement the Global Development Initiatives, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative. In doing so, we will form the greatest synergy for developing countries to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. 

This year, China will host the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. We will use this opportunity to renew friendship and advance development with Belt and Road partners, and turn this Belt and Road Initiative into a road to happiness that benefits the world and humanity.

Dear Colleagues, Friends,

The GDI has further connected and united us. I hope more like-minded friends and partners will join the Group of Friends of the GDI, and participate in the policy exchanges and practical cooperation under the GDI framework. Let’s work together to turn the vision of the 2030 Agenda into reality.

Thank you.