China Development Forum 2025 Charts a Fresh Blueprint of Win-Win Cooperation

The two-day China Development Forum (CDF) 2025 that ended on March 24 set the tone of global oneness toward global development for a new stage of balanced, coordinated and inclusive growth in the face of rising protectionism, unilateralism and decoupling.

From the opening to conclusion, the Chinese leadership put the best foot forward that future economic survival lies in partnership instead of fragmentation.

Under the theme of “unleashing development momentum for stable growth of global economy,” this year’s forum attracted more than 100 representatives from both home and abroad, including entrepreneurs, government officials, scholars and representatives of international organizations.

The general impression is that with the soft image building of Chinese philosophy advocated by President Xi Jinping and his Global Development Initiative (GDI), this mega event has successfully presented a new face of “global development mechanism” to shrug off old trodden paths of a unipolar world. It makes sense that such sincere development wisdom will leave lasting imprints on the minds of foreign companies.

Expanding higher-standard opening up and stabilizing foreign trade and investment regardless of changes in the external environment, CDF has beefed up its commitment to steadily expand institutional opening up and take the initiative to open wider and advance multilateral opening up in a well-ordered way, so as to promote reform and development through greater openness.

The Ministry of Commerce of China pledged to continue to bolster policies for stabilizing foreign trade and support enterprises in securing orders, exploring new markets, promoting cross-border e-commerce by improving logistics services for cross-border delivery and boosting development of overseas warehouses.

As a part of the facilitation of foreign companies, CDF has become the staunch voice of cultivating new growth drivers, such as green trade and digital trade, and supports localities where conditions permit in developing new types of offshore trade.

It is heartening to note that top brass of foreign companies could not help showing healthy admiration on the China-driven “Global development agenda” that is destined to change the fate of global west and global south.

Roland Busch, president and chief executive officer of Siemens AG, hailed China’s contribution to the growth of the global economy and green transition during an opening address at the China Development Forum 2025 (CDF) in Beijing.

Noting that the world’s economy is undergoing a massive transformation driven by many aspects, Busch said China has found the answer to issues surrounding global growth by focusing on high-tech, higher efficiency, and high-quality growth.

“The government of China is taking action. China is even going one step further, changing the operating system of its economy to unleash new quality productive forces,” Busch said, adding that the government of China is continuously working on creating a level playing field and a fairer business environment.

“To master the world’s major challenges, to unleash further growth potentials, companies need to create powerful ecosystems, supported by governments,” he said. “If we collaborate, we will turn challenges into opportunities. If we collaborate, we will create better lives, common prosperity – sustainably.”

Meanwhile, former Australian State Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews praised China’s new quality productive forces as a transformative model, stressing that China’s progress in renewable energy deserves far greater global recognition. He also noted that while the United States remains obsessed with “erratic and nonsensical tariff games,” Australia and China are forging a new path toward global sustainability through pragmatic collaboration.

Ahead of CDF, China has already won the hearts of the world by boosting the country’s visa-free policies.

According to the National Immigration Administration, China recorded 14.37 million border entries and exits during the Spring Festival holiday season, a 6.3-percent increase from a year earlier. About one million of these trips were made by foreign nationals, a 22.9-percent year-on-year increase.

Right now, the global economic recovery is on the go-slow mode, the confrontational trade ambience has not ceased to exist, and global unity is yet to be restored wriggling out of clouds of antagonism in international arena. However, the convening of the forum has provided ideas to navigate out of the haze. Development is the path to economic growth, the cornerstone of people’s happiness, and the antidote to conflicts. While certain countries are busy building walls and drawing lines, caught in the quagmire of the “zero-sum game” mentality, China insisted on paving the way and building bridges, and extends a sincere invitation to the world by “comprehensively releasing the kinetic energy of development.”

Since development is the common aspiration of people from all countries, and China is becoming a powerful magnetic field for forging consensus on development. Many people have two prominent feelings about this year’s CDF. One is more “new friends” are attending this year’s event which sees multinational enterprises from 21 countries. Business executives from U.S. companies Apple and Pfizer, Europe’s Siemens and BMW, South Korea’s Samsung, Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group, as well as companies in Malaysia, Brazil and other Global South countries, are actively participating in the forum. From manufacturing, finance to services, the international business community leaders and new forces have gathered in Beijing.

To date, China has granted 13 foreign-invested companies access to value-added telecom services, over 40 foreign-funded biotechnology projects have kicked off, and three new wholly foreign-owned hospitals have been approved for operation.

This step will help make China a favored destination for foreign investment. Ministry of Commerce helped resolve more than 500 issues for foreign-funded enterprises through roundtable meetings and pledged continuous efforts to improve service and business environment for foreign investors.

The China Development Forum 2025 has taken everybody by storm as it came up with a number of “new forces” in China’s development, such as Unitree Robotics, Horizon Robotics and RedNote. As China transforms itself from the “global factory” to the “source of innovation,” the public goods provided by China’s new quality productive forces are increasing the country’s appeal in the landscape of an open world.

The article reflects the author’s opinions, and not necessarily the views of China Focus.