China vows to continue opening its economy amid U.S. trade tensions

Chinese language Premier Li Qiang pledged on Sunday to additional open the nation’s economic system to overseas corporations and pursue extra balanced commerce with its international companions, after a yr marked by commerce friction and tariff wars with the USA and European Union particularly.

China will import extra high-quality overseas items and work with all events to advertise optimized and balanced commerce improvement and broaden the worldwide commerce pie, Li instructed the China Growth Discussion board in Beijing, in keeping with state media.

The annual two-day discussion board, which concludes on Monday, permits Beijing to put out its financial imaginative and prescient and funding alternatives to overseas enterprise leaders, Chinese language officers, economists and teachers. It comes after the world’s second-biggest economic system reported a file $1.2 trillion commerce surplus for 2025.

Challenges for Beijing are aplenty, together with deflecting considerations from an growing variety of international capitals about China’s commerce practices and overcapacity, in addition to their overreliance on key Chinese language merchandise.

Whereas Li’s speech didn’t seem to instantly point out the excess, his pledges point out an consciousness that the problem may disrupt worldwide relations at a time when China has reached a brief truce with the U.S. on commerce. U.S. President Donald Trump final week postponed a visit to Beijing to satisfy with Chinese language President Xi Jinping as a result of Iran conflict, delaying an effort to ease tensions between the world’s two greatest economies.

In a separate speech on the discussion board, China’s central financial institution governor Pan Gongsheng additionally sought to alleviate considerations surrounding the commerce surplus.

“Analyzing international financial imbalances requires wanting not solely at commerce in items but in addition providers, and never solely on the present account but in addition the monetary account,” Pan mentioned, in keeping with a transcript of his speech revealed by the Individuals’s Financial institution of China, including that China is the nation with the biggest items surplus but in addition the biggest providers deficit.

China has no want and no intention to realize commerce aggressive benefit by means of foreign money depreciation, Pan mentioned.

China is working to reverse a decline in overseas direct funding, which fell 5.7% year-on-year to only over 92 billion yuan ($13.36 billion) in January, following a 9.5% drop over the course of 2025. In December, China added 200 sectors to an inventory of these eligible for overseas funding incentives, from tax breaks to preferential land use, with a concentrate on superior manufacturing, fashionable providers and inexperienced and high-tech sectors.

Li mentioned overseas corporations can be handled in the identical approach as home ones, permitting enterprises from all international locations to develop with confidence and realise their ambitions in China. In a separate assembly, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao instructed enterprise leaders from a U.S. pharmaceutical commerce group and executives from 5 main multinational drug firms that China will strengthen mental property safety and enhance coverage transparency.

Apple Chief Govt Tim Cook dinner in a keynote speech mentioned that the corporate would proceed to work with Chinese language suppliers to additional advance the trade, state media reported.

Senior executives from Samsung Electronics, Volkswagen , chipmaker Broadcom Inc , industrial conglomerate Siemens , chemical producer BASF and prescribed drugs agency Novartis are amongst these attending the discussion board.

Monetary establishments together with HSBC Holdings, UBS Group and Normal Chartered additionally despatched representatives.