Madam President,

The Chinese delegation associates itself with the statement made by the representative of Palestine on behalf of G77 and China.

The world today is undergoing a new round of major development, transformation and adjustment. Global challenges such as economic recession, poverty, violent conflicts and climate change have had a profound impact on women's advancement.

Development holds the master key to solving all problems. The international community should, from a development perspective, implement the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda in a comprehensive and balanced manner to promote the equal and coordinated development of men and women.

The theme of the current session is "social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls", in this connection, China wishes to propose the following:

First, we should fully consider the gender disparity in reality and the specific interests of women in promoting the coordinated advancement of women and socio-economic development;

Second, we should strengthen the social protection system to eliminate the gender gap and pay attention to women in the informal economic sector;

Third, we should improve public service delivery to help, serve and benefit women, particularly those who are poor, disabled and left behind in rural areas.

Fourth, we should increase capital input in and intellectual support for infrastructure to strengthen its global connectivity and sustainable development.

Madam President,

The Chinese government has always attached great importance to gender equality. In the Global Leaders' Meeting on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in 2015, President Xi Jinping put forward a four-point proposal to promote gender equality and women's comprehensive development. In the past 7 decades since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chinese government has taken proactive steps to ensure that women can, on an equal footing, exercise their democratic rights in accordance with the law, participate in socio-economic development, and enjoy dividends of the reform and development. The status of women in China has undergone tremendous changes.

--China has developed a body of law based on the Constitution that consists of more than 100 legislations and regulations to safeguard women's rights and interests, such as the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests and the Law on Employment Promotion.

--Gender disparity has been essentially eliminated in compulsory education. Over 50% of the students in both undergraduate and postgraduate studies are female.

--Support for women's employment and entrepreneurship has been strengthened with more than 359 billion RMB yuan of cumulative secured loans granted for women's entrepreneurship, benefiting more than 6 million women. Gender-based discrimination in the recruitment process is prohibited by law.

--The quality of women's health care continue to improve. The maternal mortality rate has dropped to 19.6 per 100,000. Free screening of cervical cancer and breast cancer has benefited more than 80 million women and 100,000 sick women patients who live in poverty have received assistance.

--Support for women in poverty has been strengthened. In 2017, the number of poor population in rural areas decreased by approximately 140 million as compared with that in 2010, about half of which are female.

--Social protection has scaled up substantially for women in urban and rural areas. 520 million women are covered by the basic medical insurance, and a greater number of women enjoy higher standards of maternity, pension, unemployment and work injury insurance.

--Infrastructure projects in rural areas such as roads, housing and ICT services, water, electricity and gas supply are being advanced at a fast speed. The penetration rate of sanitary toilets is at 81.8%. 85% of the rural population benefited from centralized water supply, and infrastructure development has benefited hundreds of millions of women.

Madam President,

The "Belt and Road Initiative" advocates the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and benefit sharing and has actively contributed to the interconnectivity of countries, expanded new space for global economic growth and has created greater opportunities of development for people around the world. China has actively supported women in countries along the Belt and Road in their capacity building by providing assistance in kind and in other forms. China stands ready to strengthen co-operation with sisters around the globe to achieve common development.

2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Beijing World Conference on Women and the 5th anniversary of the Global Leaders' Meeting on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment. China supports UN-Women in carrying out a global review and calls upon all countries to actively participate in order to jointly promote the implementation of the Beijing Declaration, the Platform for Action and the commitments of the Global Summit and to make unremitting efforts towards gender equality, sustainable development and a community of shared future for mankind.

I thank you.