International participants at the China Development Forum 2025 highlighted that China's ongoing commitment to fostering high-quality economic development will inject more impetus and certainty into the global economy.
China has set an economic growth target of around 5 percent for 2025. Global business leaders attending the two-day forum, which kicked off on Sunday in Beijing, believe that new growth drivers across various sectors in China are progressively strengthening -- providing sustained and robust momentum for the Chinese economy while also presenting fresh opportunities for the global community.
"We have seen growth throughout in China. It's a very ambitious target, but the high confidence is actually what we are planning with as well. So, it feels like the spring in the air from an economic point of view, and the whole world is growing," said Jakob Stausholm, chief executive officer (CEO) of Rio Tinto Group.
"Very critical. China has got everything it takes to grow in the future: the size of the economy, the size of the population, excellent infrastructures that are second to none, investment power and a highly skilled workforce, great education, and great work ethics. So, all of those are extremely positive elements that will continue to make China a growth engine to the world economy," said Laurent Freixe, chief executive officer (CEO) of Swiss food company Nestle.
Currently, China is expediting the integration of technological and industrial innovation while accelerating the development of new quality productive forces. In separate interviews, conference participants noted that the rapid proliferation of China's innovation outcomes underscores the immense potential of the Chinese market.
"China is one of the most important innovation markets. Meanwhile, we see genuine innovations happening in China, and that's what we are doubling down on. We continue our investment in China," said Roland Busch, president and CEO of Siemens AG.
"Now in the AI industry (China has found) a fundamentally different and cheaper ways of delivering these very, very powerful outcomes. We see in the new economy sectors around EVs, battery technology, clean tech, or climate change-related technologies where China has really taken the leading edge, taken the leading positions in terms of developing new technologies. This is really good for the world," Bill Winters, the CEO of Standard Chartered, stated during the forum.
"We've seen with the DeepSeek innovation only a couple of months ago that through intelligence you can just jump to the next level. So I'm very, very excited about the opportunities that artificial intelligence gives our customers and gives us," Ola Kallenius, chairman of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group, said.
China rolled out the 2025 Action Plan for Stabilizing Foreign Investment in February, introducing 20 practical measures to boost foreign investment. It has also accelerated the launch of pilot projects aimed at expanding opening-up in areas such as value-added telecommunications, biotechnology, and wholly foreign-funded hospitals.
Participants shared that this sends a positive signal that China will continue to promote higher-level opening-up.
"Chinese government at all levels is creating such a favorable business environment for foreign investment. So, for our company, Amway, we are very confident in the future of China. China is our largest market," said Michael Nelson, CEO of American direct selling giant Amway Global.
"We are delighted to see the momentum, the commitments are behind common prosperity, the commitment behind the consumer growth, and the commitment behind science -- and all of that in a sustainable way," added Antoine Bernard de Saint-Affrique, CEO of Danone, a world-leading food company.
China's high-quality development injects vitality into global economy: business leaders
