On March 18, 2023, Chinese Embassy in Jamaica cooperated with Jamaica Observer, Gleaner and Our Today to publish a special layout introducing the 2023 two sessions of China. Ambassador Chen Daojiang contributed an signature article titled China’s New Journey Delivers New Opportunities to China-Jamaica Relations. The full text is as follows:
From March 4 to 13, 2023, China successfully held the two sessions (session of the National People’s Congress and session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference). The sessions featured democracy, unity, truth-seeking and enterprise. Nearly 3,000 NPC deputies shouldered their heavy responsibilities entrusted by the people and actively contributed their ideas and proposals on national affairs. Over 2,100 CPPCC members focused their consultations on central tasks of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and China, and contributed their wisdom and strengths to advancing Chinese modernization.
The first session of the 14th NPC highly evaluated the great and globally recognized achievements in the cause of the CPC and the country. The session elected China’s new national leadership, deliberated on and approved the government work report and other important reports, identified the overall tasks, major targets and priorities in China’s socioeconomic development in 2023, and deliberated on and approved the institutional reform plan of China’s State Council. Functions of government organs have been further improved.
On March 10, Comrade Xi Jinping was unanimously re-elected to be the President of the People’s Republic of China and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the People’s Republic of China. This fully reflects the common wishes of the whole Party and the people, and greatly inspired and motivated over 1.4 billion Chinese people to rally more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core and to make confident, united and courageous steps in the new journey of fully building a modern socialist great country in all respects and advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts.
In the new journey, China will surely deliver new achievements in its social and economic development. From 2013 to 2021, China’s GDP grew at an average annual growth rate of 6.6%, higher than the global average of 2.6% and the average of 3.7% among the developing economies. Over the past 10 years, China’s GDP grew from 54 trillion RMB to 121 trillion RMB, and China’s economy contributed an average of over 30% annually to global growth. China’s ranking in the Global Innovation Index rose from the 34th to the 11th in the past decade, marking China among innovative countries. In 2023, China will continue to pursue high-quality development, and its major targets for socioeconomic development are as follows. The total GDP will grow by around 5%; around 12 million job opportunities in urban areas will be created; consumer price index (CPI) will increase by around 3%; total output of grain will remain at above 650 million metric tons. Going forward, China will continue to inject strong confidence and dynamism into the global economic recovery process that is rife with uncertainties.
In the new journey, major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics will surely make more contributions. Over the past decade, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), proposed by China, has galvanized nearly US$1 trillion of investment, established more than 3,000 cooperation projects, created 420,000 local jobs, and helped lift nearly 40 million people out of poverty. China will host the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation this year. China will work with all relevant parties for more fruitful outcomes from Belt and Road cooperation. The Global Development Initiative (GDI) and the Global Security Initiative (GSI), proposed by China and supported by over 100 and over 80 countries and international organizations respectively, will make important contributions to maintaining world peace and security and promoting global development and prosperity. Just three days ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), which advocates the respect for the diversity of civilizations, the common values of humanity, the importance of inheritance and innovation of civilizations, and robust international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation, so as to jointly open up a new prospect of enhanced exchanges and understanding among different peoples and better interactions and integration of diversified cultures. In the future, China will continue to contribute more Chinese wisdom, solutions and strength to solving common problems facing humanity.
In the new journey, China-Jamaica strategic partnership will surely be promoted to a new level. Since China and Jamaica established diplomatic relations more than 50 years ago, our two countries has always been enjoying steady and sound bilateral relations, fruitful practical cooperation, and increasingly close people-to-people exchanges, which brings tangible benefits to both countries and peoples. Our two countries co-hosted a series of events celebrating the Golden Jubilee of diplomatic relations in 2022 and our two peoples had deeper understanding of China-Jamaica friendly cooperation. In 2022, our bilateral trading volume exceeded US$1 billion, reaching US$1.059 billion, a year-on-year increase of over 30%, while Jamaica’s export to China surged nearly 140% year-on-year. The accumulative investment by Chinese companies in Jamaica exceeded US$2.1 billion, which has created nearly 40,000 direct jobs for Jamaica. China has provided scholarships to hundreds of Jamaican students, and short-term training for over 3,000 Jamaicans in various fields. In the future, as long as our high-level officials keep close communication, our practical cooperation be enhanced with continuous promotion of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation and future implementation of the Global Development Initiative, and our people-to-people exchanged be strengthened, the potential of China-Jamaica cooperation in various fields will definitely and fully be unleashed, and China-Jamaica strategic partnership will surely embrace a bright future and be promoted to a new level.
2023 is China’s first year of fully implementing the guiding principles set forth by the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and is the beginning of the second 50 years of China-Jamaica relations. I firmly believe that, under the strategic guidance of our leaders, both countries will yield more, better, and higher-quality development outcomes in the future. In the new journey, let’s join hands together and pool our efforts to jointly promote stable and sound development of China-Jamaica relations, enhance our people’s sense of gains and happiness, build a China-Jamaica community with a shared future in the new era so as to make contributions to building a community with a shared future for mankind!