BEIJING, October 30 (INP): China made a big breakthrough in the recent years, promoting its foreign trade, including with Pakistan and other regional countries.

“We will revamp up efforts to bolster high-quality development of trade and two-way investment, which can push opening-up to new heights, senior commerce officials said, reports China Economic Net on Wednesday.

Qian Keming, vice-minister of commerce, said the country has continuously made new progress and breakthroughs in commerce development. The scale and growth rate of China's foreign trade has ranked among the top spots in the world, and the quality of attracting foreign investment has constantly improved, Qian said at the China Forum on Opening and Development.

In the future, China must advance high-quality economic development under conditions of deeper opening-up, Qian said in his opening remarks. The country must develop high-quality trade and two-way investment, and actively participate in the global governance system, he said.

During the forum, the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, the research body affiliated with the Ministry of Commerce, released the 2019 China Opening and Development Report.

The report is the first of its kind to attempt to build a system for evaluating the opening-up level of an economy, and aims to assess China's opening-up endeavors in an objective and fair manner, said Gu Xueming, president of CAITEC.

Citing the report, Gu said China has made great progress in becoming a more open economy, which has created fresh development opportunities for China and the world. The country will continue to push opening-up to higher levels at all fronts, and contribute to global open economy, the report said.

"At a time when protectionism has prevailed, it's crucial to construct a comprehensive and fair system to assess the extent to which a country is opening up," Zhang Wei, deputy president of the think tank, told reporters on the sidelines of the forum. "China has been opening up at all fronts. It's improper to evaluate such efforts based on only one criterion."

China has fully fulfilled the commitments since its entry to World Trade Organization, and based on that it has been continuing to open up wider on its own agenda, Zhang said, citing the finance sector as an example.

Yi Xiaozhun, deputy director general of the WTO, said the world welcomes a new round of reform and opening-up measures by the Chinese government, including setting up more free trade pilot zones, further reducing tariffs, liberalizing services sectors, and hosting the annual China International Import Expo.

"All these ongoing and renewed efforts clearly demonstrate China's strong resolve to remain open against a high tide of protectionism," Yi said. "This will help restore and further build the confidence of the international community."

He said he has high hopes for China to further advance its reform and opening-up effort to new heights.

Also on Tuesday, Vice-Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen stressed that the government will support foreign investment in new areas of liberalization.

Continuous efforts will be made to further shorten the nationwide and pilot free trade zone's negative lists for the access of foreign investment and eliminate all restrictive measures that are not included in the negative lists.

INP/JAVED