China's opening-up policy to continue

BEIJING - China will continue its policy of opening-up to the outside world and encourage its enterprises to participate in equal competition in that process, Vice-Premier Li Keqiang said on Friday.

He said the world's second-largest economy will implement a "proactive" strategy to promote further opening-up, and allow the market to play a bigger role in the economy as reforms have just entered a critical zone where "no progress means retreat".

"Financial and other types of enterprises should seek opportunities and participate in competition on an equal basis during the opening-up," Li said, adding that both Chinese and foreign companies will benefit from such equal competition.

Analysts said China could further open up its economy on the three fronts of trade, investment and finance.
"The basis of China's strategic development is still to expand domestic demand, as the country is undergoing accelerating industrialization and urbanization," Li said.
"China will continue to make more efforts to encourage domestic enterprises to go overseas," said Wang Haifeng, director of international economy at Institute for International Economic Research, a think tank under the National Development and Reform Commission.