President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the second China International Import Expo in Shanghai on Nov 5, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua]

President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony of the second China International Import Expo in Shanghai on Tuesday. He announced the opening of the expo and delivered a keynote speech.

Xi extended warm welcome to all guests to the second CIIE and said he believes that all friends could come with pleasure and return with satisfaction.

China makes major progress in expanding import, cutting tariffs

China has made major progress in expanding import to promote consumption and cutting tariffs as part of the country's efforts to further open up its market, Xi said.

All of the five measures to expand opening-up announced at the previous CIIE have been generally implemented, Xi said.

Countries should not let own interest override mankind's

Countries should uphold the concept of putting humanity first and should not let their own interest override that of mankind, the president said.

Opposing protectionism, unilateralism

Xi urged resolute opposition to protectionism and unilateralism in a bid to jointly build a world economy of openness and cooperation.

He proposed continuous reduction of trade barriers and further improvement of global value and supply chains to jointly nurture market demand.

Opposing knowledge blockade

He called on countries to oppose knowledge blockade to avoid creating or even widening technological divide.

Xi also urged jointly strengthening protection of intellectual property rights.   

Three proposals for economic globalization

Xi put forward three proposals for economic globalization at the opening of the second China International Import Expo.

-- Jointly building an open and cooperative world economy;

-- Jointly building an open and innovative world economy;

-- Jointly building an open and sharing world economy.

Underlining core values, basic principles of multilateral trading regime

He called for efforts to uphold the core values and basic principles of the multilateral trading regime, and promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation.

President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the second China International Import Expo in Shanghai on Nov 5, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua]

China to further cut tariffs, institutional costs

China will pay more attention to the role of import and continue to open up its market, Xi said.

Steps will be taken to further cut tariffs and institutional costs, nurture a batch of innovative demonstration zones for import facilitation, and expand import of high-quality products and services from other countries, he said.

China to further ease market access for foreign investment

Xi said the country will further ease market access for foreign investment and shorten the negative list.

China will continue to improve the business environment to make it more market-oriented, law-based and internationalized, he said.

China to adopt five measures to promote higher-level opening-up

Xi pledged that China will adopt five measures to promote higher-level opening-up:

-- Continue to expand market opening-up;

-- Continue to optimize the framework of opening-up;

-- Continue to improve business environment;

-- Continue to deepen multilateral and bilateral cooperation;

-- Continue to jointly build the Belt and Road.

Xi said he believes that China, bound to have even brighter economic development prospects, will provide other countries with more opportunities in terms of market, investment and growth.