China Needs To Find Its Own Economic Path

Chinese and overseas business experts and executives gathering at Monday's China Development Forum said that China needs to find its own path of economic development, instead of following the models of other countries.

Seiichi Kondo, deputy secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), said that China should learn the lessons from Japan's model of building global giant corporations which were very successful from the 1970s to the mid 1980s, but suffered major setbacks for "overlooking the global trend".

Mark Moody-Stuart, chairman of the Royal Dutch Shell Group, agreed that China should not rely entirely on Japan's model or other southeast Asian countries. Rather, China should find its own path in promoting and developing e-commerce and its business-to-business industries.

Li Yizhong, president of Sinopec, or China Petroleum Chemical Industry Group, said that Sinopec has almost completed its distribution and financial networks. "China's traditional industries should not be pessimistic in facing the challenges of a Web economy."

Robert Hormats, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs International, suggested that the smaller businesses in the service and information sectors will adapt to e-commerce technology more easily if they can attract enough capital.

Chen Qingtai, deputy director of the Development Research Center under the State Council, said smaller businesses constitute a powerful engine behind China's economic growth and can help alleviate unemployment problems by taking in laid off workers from state-owned enterprises. Chen said that Chinese and foreign smaller businesses will be allowed more market entry after China enters the WTO.

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