Premier Li Keqiang said China is confident of keeping its annual growth rate around 7 percent for a fair period of time by persisting with its reform and opening-up and tapping its huge potential.

While meeting with international business leaders on June 9, Li said conditions still exist for China to sustain its growth at a “medium-to-high level” despite the economy’s current slowdown.

Li said he drew his confidence from the fact that large areas are yet to be developed in central and western China, reflecting the gap between the relatively industrialized coastal areas and those regions.

“If the Chinese economy could expand at around 7 percent this year, it would translate into an incremental volume of about $800 billion,” he said.

The Premier made the remarks when meeting with members of the Global CEO Council in Beijing. The council, an organization set up in 2013 by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, includes 14 global corporate leaders from the manufacturing, natural resources, energy, machinery, agriculture, finance, banking, pharmaceutical, aviation, engineering, logistics and information technology sectors.

Li admitted there will be “twists and turns” as foreign companies try to expand business in China, but he said China’s opening-up into a better-integrated global economy will not be held back.

Foreign-invested companies in China should be one of the powers maintaining the medium-to-high growth of the Chinese economy, the Premier said, and, in a bid to attract more foreign investors, the Chinese government will further open market access, provide better financial services and step up intellectual property rights protection.

“Sectors in high-end manufacturing and the service industry in particular will be opened wider to foreigners,” he said.

[Photo by Wu Zhiyi/China Daily]

[Photo/China News Service]

[Photo/China News Service]