China stands ready to deepen international cooperation in creating barrier-free environments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a press briefing in Beijing on Tuesday.
The event of "Accessibility for All Exhibition: Building an Inclusive Future" was held in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday, also the opening day of the 59th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). It was co-hosted by the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva and the United Nations Office at Geneva.
"In October last year, the 57th session of the UN Human Rights Council adopted by consensus the resolution 'Promoting accessibility for the full enjoyment of all human rights by all' tabled by China representing 30 countries. Holding this exhibition is an important step to implement the resolution. The exhibition consists of three parts, information accessibility, cultural accessibility, and physical accessibility, which showcases the thinking behind China’s Law on Building Accessible Environments and the good practices ensuring special groups’ access to the benefits of China’s high-quality development. Over 300 guests, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk and representatives of permanent missions at Geneva attended the event," said Guo.
"We stand ready to continue putting efforts together to deepen international cooperation on building accessible environments, achieve accessibility for all, deeply engage and take a lead in global human rights governance, and promote sound progress of the international human rights cause," he added.
China ready to deepen int'l cooperation in creating barrier-free environments: spokesman
China will continuously build a robust domestic market to bolster its economy and counter external challenges in accordance with the requirements and arrangement from the annual Central Economic Work Conference, which put domestic demand at the forefront of eight key tasks for next year's economic work, according to experts.
The tone-setting conference was held in Beijing from Wednesday to Thursday in which the Chinese leadership decided priorities for the economic work in 2026.
Over the past four years, domestic demand has contributed an average of 86.4 percent to China's economic growth, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner.
"The top priority is to expand domestic demand as the key reason for this is that our demand is relatively weak. The first step here is figuring out how to increase consumption," said Chen Binkai, vice president of Central University of Finance and Economics.
Consumption has continued to play a leading role in the country's economic growth this year. In the first three quarters, final consumption expenditure contributed 53.5 percent to economic growth, an increase of 9 percentage points compared to the whole of last year.
The annual Central Economic Work Conference proposed that in 2026, a special campaign to boost consumption will be implemented in depth, the supply of high-quality goods and services will be expanded, policies on new and emerging industries will be optimized, unreasonable restrictions in the consumption field will be eliminated, and the potential of service consumption will be unleashed.
"Previously, much of the consumption we have encouraged is for manufactured goods. However, the growth rate of our service sector is not as ideal as that of the manufacturing sector. Therefore, increasing some investment to encourage consumption in the service sector may play a better role in stabilizing growth and expanding domestic demand," said Huang Qunhui, a researcher of the Institute of Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Experts said that income is the primary factor determining consumption, and only by increasing residents' disposable income, can their consumption capacity be improved.
They also said that the conference, while emphasizing the promotion of consumption, also clearly pointed out the need to formulate and implement a plan to increase the income of urban and rural residents.
"The Third Plenary Session [of the 20th CPC Central Committee] mentioned the need to increase the proportion of residents' income, specifically the proportion of labor compensation within that income. The Fourth Plenary Session [of the 20th CPC Central Committee] further proposed implementing a specific income-increasing plan for urban and rural residents. Of course, consumption is not solely an income issue. We need to strengthen basic public services and improve our social security fund. If these issues are further improved and optimized, and residents have higher incomes, they will be more willing to spend more on consumption, especially on development-oriented consumption," said Huang.
Expanding domestic demand remains top priority for China's economic work in 2026: experts
