Mr. Ma Jiantang Participated in Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of Founding of New China Seminar in Japan

Mr. Ma Jiantang, Commissioner of National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS), was invited to participate in “Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of Founding of New China Seminar” in Tokyo, Japan, on September 2, and made a keynote speech entitled “Great Changes of China's Economy in 60 Years and Current Macroeconomic Situation". After the Seminar, Mr. Ma Jiantang met with Mr. Toshihiro Nikai, Minister of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan (METI), visited the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Statistics Bureau, and accepted an interview with the reporters from Nikkei Inc..

(Photod by Nikkei Inc.)

“Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of Founding of New China Seminar" was jointly organized by the State Council Information Office of China (SCIO) and Nikkei. Inc., and co-hosted by Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), the keynote of the Seminar introduced great achievements of China's social, economic and political development in 60 years of founding of new China, especially in 30 years of reform and opening up, and future trends to the Japanese public.

(Mr. Ma Jiantang, Photod by Nikkei Inc.)

Mr. Ma Jiantang pointed out that, for 60 years since the founding of new China, under the correct leadership of the Central Government, through energetic exploration and hard struggle by the industrious and brave people, great historical changes have taken place in China, from a devastated, poor and weak old China, gradually developed into today's prosperity and world admired the socialist new China. As a result of 60 years of development, China's economic aggregate ranking jumped to the third place in the world, holistically from a low-income country to a lower-middle-income country.  The supply capacity of grain, meat, steel and other major industrial and agricultural products significantly enhanced, and gradually developed into a big manufacturing country in the world. The total volume of foreign trade leapt to the third place in the world, and the use of foreign capital positioned in the first place for many years among the developing countries. The foreign economic relations achieved great historical turning point, from a closed or semi-closed to full open. The urban-rural income significantly increased, the quality of consumption gained noticeably improvement. The population in poverty reduced significantly.  The people livelihood achieved a historical leap from poor to the overall well-off, and now marching ahead towards the goal of all-round well-off.

(Messrs. Ma Jiantang and Toshihiro Nikai)

By introduction on China's macro-economic policy, Mr. Ma Jiantang pointed out that, in face of the most serious international financial crisis since the 1930s of last century, the Chinese government assessed the situation and made resolute decision-making, implemented a proactive fiscal policy and appropriately easier monetary policy, promulgated and implemented a package of policies and measures for expanding domestic demand, maintaining domestic growth, adjusting structures, benefiting the people livelihood. At present, China's economy appeared a series of new and positive changes such as recovery of production growth, accelerated growth of domestic demand, leading indicators and economic structure continued to improve, the trend that the economy becomes stabilized and better is becoming clear. But at the same time, the foundation of China's economic rebound is not stable, external demand remains declining, the further growth of domestic demand is also restricted by a number of factors. And the economic stabilized rebound remains uneven. In order to consolidate and develop the good momentum of the economic recovery, the relevant policies and measures need to be fully implemented, and the continuity and stability of policies should be maintained.

(Messrs. Ma Jiantang and Shigeru Kawasaki)

Mr. Ma Jiantang stressed that, in this crucial moment that the global economy is recovering fromthe crisis, China and Japan, as the countries that played important roles in Asian and the world economy, should work together to strengthening the coordination of the macroeconomic policies, expanding the areas and levels of cooperation, making due contributions to the stable development of the world economy.

Messrs. Wang Chen, Minister of SCIO, Tsuneo Kita, President, CEO of Nikkei Inc, Toshihiro Nikai,  Minister of METI, Katsuya Okada, Secretary General of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Cui Tiankai, Chinese Ambassador to Japan, addressed at the Seminar respectively; Li Rongrong, Chairman, Party Secretary of China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), Li Zhongjie, Deputy Director of Party History Research Centre of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a speech on China's state-owned enterprises and on China's political and social development process and prospects respectively.

During the meeting with Mr. Toshihiro Nikai, Mr. Ma Jiantang introduced further information on China's economic and social development, and Sino-Japanese statistical cooperation progress, gave thanks to Mr. Nikai for the development of Sino-Japanese friendship and cooperation, especially personal involvement and supports in statistical cooperation.

At the time of visiting SBJ, Messrs. Ma Jiantang and Shigeru Kawasaki, Director-General of SBJ, co-reviewed the Sino-Japanese friendly and cooperative relations in statistics since 1980, both sides agreed to further strengthen cooperation, especially the high-level bilateral activities in 2010 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Sino-Japanese cooperation in statistics. Mr. Ma also inspected the overview of Japanese statistical system, responsibilities, composition and operation of the Statistical Commission, implementation of labor force surveys and censuses, statistical data dissemination, application and use of statistical funds.

During the press interview by the Nikkei Inc., Mr. Ma Jiantang answered relevant questions concerning with China’s economic growth target in 2009, a package of economic recovery measures and their effects, and the short-term trends and long-term goals of China's economy.