On September 23 local time, President Xi Jinping attended in Seattle the China-US CEO Roundtable.

Xi Jinping commented highly the long-term and important contributions of bilateral industrial and commercial circles to cooperation in economy and trade between China and the US and the development of bilateral relations. Xi Jinping pointed out that China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial and win-win in nature. US enterprises’ operations in China and cooperation between enterprises of both sides have played a positive role in China’s development. US enterprises also have harvested generous profits and returns, promoting the US economic development. Chinese enterprises’ investment in the US in recent years has also been booming, creating a great number of jobs for the US. At present, the two countries are facing new situations as well as new development opportunities in their economies. Deepening China-US economic and trade cooperation bears great significance to the development of both countries and the world prosperity.

Xi Jinping emphasized that the long-term positive trend of China’s economy will not change. China’s economic fundamentals remain solid and its economy will continue to maintain a long-term steady growth at a medium-to-high speed. The Chinese economy still has huge potentials, ample leeway and strong intrinsic tenacity, and thus is fully capable of maintaining long-term growth at a relatively high pace and providing a broad market and solid support for the world economy. In combination with the thirteenth Five-Year Plan for national economy and social development which is under formulation, we will vigorously promote the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, implement an innovation-driven development strategy, quicken the pace of agricultural modernization, take the path of green, recyclable and low-carbon development, and pay more attention to development quality and efficiency. We will strengthen the streamlining of administration and delegating of power to lower levels, enhance and innovate macro regulation and control, and promote the economy for continuous and healthy development.

Xi Jinping indicated that China will continuously open wider to the outside world. We will unswervingly pursue the open strategy of mutual benefit and win-win results, continue to draw energy from the world for our development, and also make China’s development better benefit the world. China is now carrying out a new round of high-level opening up, striving to build a new system of open economy, promoting reform of management system of foreign investments, reducing remarkably restrictions on foreign investment admission and enhancing the protection of intelligent property rights (IPR). China and the US are promoting the negotiations for bilateral investment treaty (BTI). The BTI will help loosen limits on market access in Chinese and US markets to a greater extent and set up more open and transparent market rules, which is in conformity with the general direction of China’s deepening reform and expanding opening up and beneficial to the US economic development as well.

Xi Jinping underlined that China-US economic and trade cooperation boasts huge potentials. Due to the differences in development stages, there is strong complementarity between the two economies, along with wider space and more opportunities for the bilateral cooperation in economy and trade. We support big US companies to set up regional headquarters and research and development centers in China and encourage more US small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to expand business in China. In the meanwhile, China will also keep increasing investment into the US.

The roundtable hosts, Chairman of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Jiang Zengwei and former Secretary of Treasury Henry M. Paulson of the US, reported the discussion details of the China-US CEO Roundtable and suggestions of entrepreneurs from both sides on deepening China-US economic and trade cooperation. Jiang Zengwei introduced Chinese entrepreneurs’ great willingness to strengthen China-US investment cooperation, and expressed hope that the US government will provide equitable opportunities and fair conditions for Chinese enterprises to invest in the US. Henry M. Paulson spoke highly of President Xi Jinping’s important speech at the banquet held by US friendly groups on the evening of September 22, and expressed that US enterprises are glad to see the success in China’s reform and development and that the concerted efforts of the two sides in dealing with major issues like climate change have provided more opportunities for bilateral cooperation in industries like clean energy. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker of the US, who accompanied Xi Jinping at the roundtable, noted that the international community pays high attention to China’s development, and the US also holds that the world can benefit from such development and stands ready to strengthen cooperation with China in the latter’s development process.

Chiefs of Chinese and US enterprises including the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), the Walt Disney Company, the Dow Chemical, Alibaba Group, Bank of China and Lenovo Group voiced their views on topics like China’s reform and opening up, China-US economic cooperation, China-US BTI talks, market access and investment censorship of the two governments, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, the Chinese dream and the American dream, low-carbon economy, industrial innovations and entrepreneurship, SME financing, IPR protection and China-US industrial technology cooperation. Those attended the roundtable also included persons in charge from over thirty large Chinese and US enterprises such as Wanxiang Group, Tencent Holdings, ENN Group, China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC), Shuanghui Group, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co., Ltd., Shangdong Yuhuang Chemical (Group) Co., Ltd., Fosun Group, Baidu, Haier, Boeing Company, Microsoft Corporation, Amazon, Starbucks, Cisco Systems, Inc., Dupont, Berkshire Hathaway, General Motor, Apple Inc., Honeywell, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Pepsi, Wal-Mart, Ford Motor, Visa, Goldman Sachs and Federal Express.

Wang Huning, Li Zhanshu, Yang Jiechi and others attended the roundtable discussion.