Mr. Chairperson,

Ministers,

Fellow Delegates,

The Chinese delegation congratulates the Bureau on their outstanding work and wishes the meeting a full success.

The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda is of great importance to global development cooperation and sustainable development in the next 15 years. Gender equality and women’s empowerment are not only one of the goals of the Agenda, but also the key in meeting all the targets. Our mission will be fully meeting the targets, empowering all women and girls, paying special attention to women’s employment, health, rights protection and participation in decision-making, promoting all-round development of women, and building a better world for all.

Last September, China and the UN Women co-hosted the Global Leaders' Meeting on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment, creating a global upsurge in promoting gender equality at the 20th anniversary of the World Conference on Women in Beijing. 85 heads of state or government attended the Meeting and made commitment on implementing the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action for realizing the goal of gender equality by 2030. Chinese President Xi Jinping chaired the meeting and made an important speech, calling for women’s development in tandem with social and economic development, protecting women’s rights and interests and fostering a global environment favorable for women’s development. He also announced specific measures to support women’s sustainable development in developing countries. The Meeting is yet another milestone in the global undertaking of gender equality. China will follow through on the outcome and President Xi’s commitments, and work with all countries to promote gender equality, development and prosperity.

China is now drafting the 13th Five-Year Plan on National Economic and Social Development which is dedicated to innovative, coordinated, green, open and inclusive development. China will undertake to implement the 2030 Agenda and inject strong impetus into fair, inclusive and sustainable development of the world.

Over the past year, China has made good progress in enhancing gender equality and women’s empowerment, which includes the following:

The Law against Domestic Violence was enacted on 27 December 2015. The law provides the passage for public power to intervene into domestic violence, codifies the protection by the state of the lawful rights and interests of family member. The law sets the compulsory reporting responsibility on acts of violence, creates the system of police admonishment, and establishes the system of personal safety protection orders to provide solid legal guarantee for the protection of women’s rights.

The gender equality evaluation mechanism on laws, regulations and policies has been set up and extended. The mechanism has been set up in 16 provinces (municipalities) including Jiangsu and Beijing. Experts are involved in the drafting, revision and review of laws and policies to remove issues of inequality caused by gender bias.

New progress has been made in women’s economic empowerment. China further improves skills training for women and adopt preferential policy measures to encourage women’s participation in economic affairs in order to achieve poverty elimination for all, so that no one will be left behind in our joint efforts to move into the society of moderate prosperity. In 2015 we made steady progress in implementing the policy of providing government subsidized micro-credit to women. Another 73.9 billion yuan of loans were issued to women and the number of women receiving the credit increased by 969,100.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am happy to announce that as the host of the G20 Summit 2016, China will host the W20 Meeting in May 2016. We sincerely invite high-level delegations of relevant countries to the meeting where we can pool our wisdom and share our perspectives on promoting women’s economic empowerment and inclusive growth of the global economy.

The Chinese delegation appreciates the efforts and achievements made by the UN Women in promoting women’s empowerment and sustainable development. We look forward to work with the UN agencies and all countries to take actions for meeting the goals of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at an early date.

Thank you.