TIANJIN, June 27,2016-- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivered a speech at the OpeningCeremony of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the New Champions.

　　The following is the full text of Li's speech:

　　Professor Klaus Schwab,

　　Distinguished Heads of Government,

　　Distinguished Guests,

　　Ladies and Gentlemen,

　　It's a great pleasure to meet you again in Tianjin. At the outset, I wish to congratulate, on behalf ofthe Chinese government, the opening of the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, and extendsincere welcome to all our guests coming from afar and friends from the press.

　　This is the tenth Annual Meeting of the New Champions, or the Summer Davos, as it is known.There is a Chinese saying which goes, "It takes ten years to grow a tree." If we could comparethe Summer Davos to a tree, after ten years of careful nurturing, it has grown into a luxuriant treewith bountiful fruits. It has showcased to the world the process and achievements of China'sreform, opening up and modernization. It has also contributed wisdom and strength to thecommon development and prosperity of China and the world.

　　When the international financial crisis broke out eight years ago, countries resorted to variouspolicy tools to grapple with the crisis and stimulate growth. Eight years on, recovery of the worldeconomy has fallen far short of people's expectations: global trade and investment are lackluster;commodities and financial markets have experienced volatility from time to time; growthprospects of developed and emerging economies are diverging; and geopolitical risks anddestabilizing factors are both on the rise. Just a few days ago, the UK voted to leave the EU in areferendum. This is already making an impact on the international financial markets and addingto the uncertainties in the world economy. Against such a backdrop, to promote world economicrecovery and the growth of all economies, we need to make joint efforts to tackle challenges,strengthen confidence, foster a stable international environment and find solutions to addressroot causes of the problems we face. European countries are important partners for China.Under the new circumstances, China will continue to maintain and grow its relations with the EUand the UK. We hope to see a united and stable EU and a stable and prosperous UK.

　　The theme of the forum, "the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its Transformational Impact", offerspeople a new perspective and is thus forward-looking and relevant. Let me share with you a fewthoughts in this connection.

　　First, to promote steady recovery of the world economy, we must actively carry out structuralreform. To address the deep-seated problems in the world economy, we need to both strengthendemand management and advance structural reform to eliminate the root causes that triggerproblems. Countries may face different situations, yet they should all move toward addressingeconomic imbalance by way of promoting fiscal and financial reform, easing regulation,facilitating competition, supporting innovation and expanding opening up, and should all worktogether to ensure strong, sustainable and balanced growth of the world economy.

　　Second, to promote steady recovery of the world economy, we must speed up economictransformation and upgrading. For the world economy to walk out of the woods, the ultimatesolution lies in shifting the growth model and replacing old growth drivers with new ones at afaster pace. The advent of a new round of technological and industrial revolution has provided ahistorical opportunity for this. The emergence of new technologies, new tools and new materials,which are of pace-setting and transformational significance, has given a strong boost to thegrowth of the new economy and the upgrading of traditional industries. Countries should followthis prevailing trend by focusing their policies on supporting economic transformation andupgrading, and strengthen the new drivers of economic growth.

　　Third, to promote steady recovery of the world economy, we will need efficient and orderly globalgovernance. In the face of common challenges, we need to uphold the spirit of solidarity and workfor common progress. This is a sure way for us to move forward. Countries need to adopt moregrowth-friendly policies, strengthen macro policy coordination, steadfastly advance trade andinvestment liberalization and facilitation, firmly oppose protectionism and build a fairer, more justand open international economic system. The world's major economies, while making macro-economic policies, should consider not just their own growth needs but also the spillover effectsof their policies. This September, the G20 Summit will be held in Hangzhou, China. The ongoingSummer Davos has a special session on "China's G20 Agenda". I find it highly relevant as it willcontribute insights and recommendations to China's hosting of the G20 Hangzhou Summit.

　　Ladies and Gentlemen,

　　Having experienced years of rapid growth, China's economic development has now entered anew normal. In the face of mounting downward economic pressure, we have not resorted toindiscriminate strong stimulus. Instead, we have focused on exploring new models of macrocontrol, vigorously advanced structural reform, and concentrated our efforts on cultivating newdrivers of growth while upgrading traditional ones. As a result, we have maintained steadyeconomic development, ranking among top of the world's major economies in terms of growthspeed, and made positive progress in structural adjustment. The journey we traveled these yearshas been fraught with risks and challenges, and we have made painstaking efforts along the way.Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see that new drivers in the economy are rapidly growing.Although they cannot yet compare with traditional drivers in size, they do play a bigger role insustaining development, securing employment, and promoting economic transformation. Giventime, the rise of the new drivers will open up new prospects for the Chinese economy.

　　This year, despite continued slowdown in global growth, the Chinese economy has on the wholemaintained stability while making steady progress, and has performed within the appropriaterange. This is indeed not easy. China's GDP expanded by 6.7% in the first quarter of the year,and registered steady growth in the second quarter. Summer grain production is expected to beanother bumper harvest. Corporate profits in the industrial sector are steadily rising. The serviceindustry is growing rapidly, and market sales are steadily expanding. CPI is basically stable, thedrop in PPI has narrowed, and energy intensity and emissions of major pollutants have continuedto fall. In particular, the employment situation is stable. In the first five months of this year, 5.77million new urban jobs were created, completing 58% of the annual employment target. Thesurveyed unemployment rate of 31 major cities in May was 5.02%.

　　An important reason the Chinese economy has maintained steady growth in the first half of theyear is that reform, innovation, adjustment and transformation have all played an important role.Reform efforts to streamline administration, delegate power and improve government serviceshave given a strong boost to mass entrepreneurship and innovation, and further unleasheddevelopment potential. Now every day in China, some 40,000 new market entities are beingcreated, including over 13,000 new enterprises. Such increase is bigger than the previous twoyears and has given a strong boost to job creation. The leading role of consumption and servicesis becoming more visible. New areas of consumption such as information and communication,smart phones and new energy vehicles are rapidly expanding. The five "happiness industries" oftourism, culture, sports, health and old-age care are rapidly growing. The service sector hasgrown into the biggest industry in the national economy, both in terms of its output and thenumber of jobs it created. An innovation-driven economy is brimming with vitality. High-techindustries, high-end manufacturing, e-commerce and other new business forms are booming.Enterprises, sectors and regions that have made an early start in economic transformation andupgrading and that embrace faster growth of new industries have all taken on a soundmomentum of growth. On the whole, the Chinese economy is better structured; its quality isimproving and a stronger momentum is being gathered.

　　We are also aware that given the complex and challenging international environment and thedeep-seated domestic problems accumulated over the years, the foundation underpinning stableperformance of the Chinese economy is yet to be strengthened. The driving effect of externaldemand on growth is waning. Private and manufacturing investments are sluggish. Latent risksstill exist in the financial and other sectors. In some industries with serious overcapacity andregions with monotonous economic structure, there have been relatively more problems.Downward economic pressure remains and the difficulties are not to be underestimated.However, the fact that we have recognized and stood up to challenges shows that we have thedetermination and ability to overcome difficulties. For the Chinese economy, there is alwaysmore hope than difficulties.

　　The fundamentals of the Chinese economy have remained unchanged, and our macro policieswill maintain continuity and stability. In the meantime, we will continue to innovate means of macrocontrol, implement the proactive fiscal policy with greater intensity and efficiency, and carry outthe prudent monetary policy in a flexible and appropriate fashion. We will channel moreresources into areas that help strengthen weak links, increase the momentum of developmentand take development to a higher level, as well as into areas of the new economy that serve topromote economic transformation and upgrading. The current debt ratio for the Chinesegovernment is around 40%, and is only around 16% for the central government, lower than manyother major economies. This has given us space for a proactive fiscal policy. A high savings ratein China means huge potential for the development of multi-tiered capital markets. It also meansmajor leeway for improving financial regulation methods and financial resource allocation. Weare in a position to create conditions to gradually lower corporate leverage ratio and financingcosts in a market-based and law-based manner. We not only have sufficient policy tools to keepeconomic performance within the reasonable range. We also have strong ability to preventsystemic or regional risks. In the stage of transition, short-term fluctuations of economic growthare hardly avoidable, but the Chinese economy will not head for a "hard landing". And we will beable to achieve the main economic and social development targets set for this year.

　　Looking ahead, the Chinese economy has huge potential, strong advantage, broad space andbright prospect. China has a 900 million strong workforce, among whom 170 million havereceived higher education or training in professional skills. Every year we produce over sevenmillion college graduates and over five million graduates from secondary vocational schools. Weare No.1 in the world in terms of the number of science professionals and No.2 in R&D input, withan input of over RMB 1 trillion made last year. China is the second biggest economy, the largestmanufacturing country, a major trading nation in goods and services, and a major destination andsource of foreign investment. It is also the world's second largest consumer market. Its middle-income population is in the hundreds of millions and is still expanding. The number of the ruralpoor is falling year by year, while that of permanent urban residents is growing by over 10 millioneach year. All these make China a major emerging market with the biggest growth potential. Itmakes China a big stage where people from every corner could tap into their intellectual potentialand start their business. We are optimistic about the current state and future prospect of theChinese economy. Optimism is a sign of confidence, and in market economy conditions,confidence guides people's expectations. This in itself generates powerful strength.

　　Ladies and Gentlemen,

　　The Chinese economy is at a crucial stage of transition from old to new growth drivers and astage of economic transformation and upgrading. We will focus on development as the toppriority and promote steady progress as we pursue innovative, coordinated, green, open andshared development. We will ensure that the government's macro policies are stable, industrialpolicies are well-targeted, micro policies are flexible, reform policies are solid and socialpolicies meet people's basic needs. While appropriately expanding aggregate demand, we willsteadfastly advance supply-side structural reform, concentrate on cutting overcapacity, reducinginventory, deleveraging, lowering costs and strengthening weak links, so that China'sdevelopment could be less reliant on natural resources and be more driven by human resourcesand innovation. This will enable the Chinese economy to maintain medium-high growth rates andmove to medium-high development levels.

　　We will guide economic transformation and upgrading through innovation. Innovation is theprimary driver of development and an important part of supply-side structural reform. We need tofurther implement the innovation-driven development strategy, and step up efforts to build aninnovation-driven country and a strong country in science and technology, so as to provide robustsupport for economic transformation and upgrading.

　　We will accelerate the development of the new economy and cultivate new growth drivers. We willvigorously advance innovation in science and technology, work for breakthroughs in major, keytechnologies, and promote the commercialization of innovation results. We will also advocatemass entrepreneurship and innovation, further promote the "Internet +" strategy, extensively applythe new generation of information technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data and cloudcomputing. We will promote integrated development of different sectors and facilitate theemergence of more new industries, new forms of business and new business models. It is alsonecessary to roll out new products and services that better meet the needs of the market andbuild platforms for mass innovation, crowd sourcing, collective support and crowd funding. Thisway, we could pool strengths to accelerate innovation and cultivate new areas of economicgrowth.

　　We need to transform and upgrade traditional drivers of growth at a faster pace. Innovation is notonly about developing the new economy. It is also about transforming and upgrading traditionalindustries to give them new vitality. We will implement the Made in China 2025 initiative to makemanufacturing more IT-based and smarter. We will conduct custom-tailored and flexibleproduction to meet consumers' diverse needs. We will accelerate changes in models ofproduction, management and marketing and create new industry chains, supply chains and valuechains. This will make Chinese manufacturing more competitive.

　　The new vision of development that we advocate is also about developing a sharing economy.The sharing economy is one of mass participation. Greater economic globalization and thespread of the Internet have provided a big stage and broad space for entrepreneurship andinnovation by the people. Through mass entrepreneurship and innovation, we will combine theinnovation activities of the elites with the grassroots, the on-line with the off-line, and companieswith research institutes, so that individual efforts of numerous market players will lead to greatersynergy for innovation-driven development. If we could make full use of the Internet to efficientlymatch the massive amounts of information about supply with that about demand, we could thenbring about cooperation among and sharing of R&D and professional expertise and skills. Thesharing economy is something that everyone can take part in and benefit from. It could unleasheveryone's potential, facilitate reasonable income distribution, expand the middle income group,allow more people, in particular the young, to fulfill their dreams through hard work, and promotesocial equity and justice.

　　We will enhance economic transformation and upgrading by comprehensively deepening reform.We have relied on reform for the remarkable achievements we made in the past 30-plus years.And fundamentally, we must rely on reform if we are to remove the institutional obstacleshindering development and advance economic transformation and upgrading. We will firmlydeepen reform to unlock market vitality and social creativity to a greater extent.

　　We need to advance structural reform, in particular that on the supply side. The structuralproblems facing the Chinese economy are about both the supply and demand sides, especiallythe supply side. We need to advance structural adjustment through reform, reduce inefficient andlow-end supply, and expand effective and medium- to high-end supply. This is conducive toeconomic transformation as well as growth. A major task for us is to phase out outdatedproduction capacity and address overcapacity, especially in steel, coal and other sectors thatface difficulty in operation. Initial progress has been made in recent years, as is shown in thelowering production of raw coal and crude steel, but our efforts must well continue. We will adopta market-based and rules-based approach and apply strict standards in environmentalprotection, quality and safety. The biggest challenge is how to address possible layoffs in thisprocess. Businesses need to take multiple measures to ensure that their employees will getreemployed. Both the central and local governments should provide necessary support to takecare of the affected employees. Overcapacity is a global challenge. The fact that we have takenthe initiative to cut overcapacity demonstrates that China is indeed a responsible country.

　　We also need to further streamline administration, delegate power, strengthen regulation andimprove services. We need to transform government functions more rapidly, improve efficiency,and ensure a level-playing field for all players and a pro-innovation institutional environment. Weneed to give priority to "simplicity" by taking away undue government powers and delegatingthem directly to the market and society wherever possible. At the same time, we need tostrengthen and innovate in market oversight, explore inclusive and effective prudential regulation,and guide and support the healthy development of new business forms and models. For thoseplayers that follow the right direction but have encountered problems, we need to give themprompt guidance, fix the problems and remove potential risks. We need to give them reasonablespace for development instead of rejecting them outright. As for those conducting illegaloperations or fraud in the name of innovation, we will punish them to the full extent of the law. Weneed to strictly protect intellectual property rights. We also need to promote the "Internet plusgovernment services" model, and set up an open platform of government public services, so thatgovernment data could be shared as much as possible. This will make it easier for individualsand companies to get things done and start up businesses, and it will enhance governmentefficiency.

　　We will promote in a coordinated way reforms in the fiscal, taxation, finance, investment andother key areas. We have put in place a nation-wide reform to replace business tax with value-added tax. This major effort to cut taxes and lower the tax burden will facilitate the innovativedevelopment of modern service industry, SMEs and micro businesses. We will deepen thereform of the financial system, accelerate the improvement of the modern financial regulatoryregime and increase the efficiency of financial services in supporting the real economy. We willalso intensify reforms in SOEs, rural areas, investment and financing, foster a social creditsystem and unleash even greater vitality for economic development. The private sector is animportant force driving economic development. We will do more to remove obstacles for privatebusinesses, lift unreasonable restrictions on market access and strive to stimulate privateinvestment.

　　We will transform and upgrade the economy through opening-up. Opening-up, being one kind ofreform itself, will in turn spur reform efforts. No matter how developed China will become, it willalways need mutual-learning with the rest of the world, and it will open still wider to the outside.We will enhance our open economy, open wider the service sector and general manufacturingsector, provide more investment opportunities to foreign businesses and foster a fairer, moretransparent and predictable investment environment. All companies registered in China,Chinese-funded, foreign-funded, joint ventures or independently-owned, will be treated as equals.Their legitimate rights and interests will be protected, and they will have access to better publicservices. Facing the current complexities and fluctuations in the international financial markets,China will adhere to a managed, floating exchange rate regime based on market supply anddemand with reference to a basket of currencies. The fundamentals of the Chinese economydetermine that there is no basis for persistent depreciation of the RMB. We have the capacity tokeep the RMB basically stable at an adaptive and equilibrium level. China is committed topeaceful development and a win-win strategy of opening-up. We stand ready to work with allother countries to promote inclusive and balanced growth as well as green and sustainabledevelopment.

　　Ladies and Gentlemen,

　　Tianjin is a big port in the world, where people could start a voyage to sail to the vast ocean. Fora giant ship to sail far, sustained and strong driving force is needed. China will work with othercountries to seize the opportunities brought by the new round of technological and industrialrevolution. Together, we will build new engines of economic growth, promote steady recovery ofthe world economy through transformation and upgrading, and jointly usher in a better future forthe development of mankind. I wish this forum a full success.