Distinguished guests, friends, ladies and gentlemen,

It's my first time at Citigroup Ireland though; the Citigroup is not unfamiliar to me. I have been to your headquarters during my stay in New York. So today I am very glad to be back and share our views here. Not long ago, RTE screened a TV series report on China--George Lee in China, which just contains two messages: the Chinese economy and society is developing swiftly, and China's development has huge impact on the world. Concerning China's impact, there are two prevailing perspectives, China is an opportunity, or China is a threat. Our view is that China's development will be conducive to the world's peace and prosperity and it is groundless to regard China as a threat. Today I would like to share with you some facts and figures. I hope these may help you know more about China and make your own judgment.

Great History,Remarkable Change

When China is mentioned, usually it is the Great Wall and terracotta warriors that come into people's minds, or lovely pandas, Chinese cuisines, acupuncture and herbal medicines, which are popular in Ireland today. However, not many people know that compass, paper making, typography and gunpowder were born in China too. All the four great innovations are contribution to the world by the ancient Chinese people. China has a history of over 5000 years, and that with written record of over 3000 years. The Chinese nation has made substantial contribution to the human civilization, and we have gone through a road with twists and turns. In particular, during the over 160 years after the British colonists invaded China in 1840, the Chinese people dedicated themselves to the struggle of eliminating poverty, getting rid of weakness and accomplishing the national rejuvenation. 59 years ago, China achieved the complete independence, and a new China of the people, by the people, and for the people was established.

The Chinese people started the reform and opening to the outside world 30 years ago. During this historic process, the Chinese people won the world's focus through arduous efforts and great accomplishments. From 1978 to 2007, China's GDP hiked from 147.3 billion USD to 3.2434 trillion, the sum of imports and exports increased from 20.6 billion to 2.17 trillion, foreign exchange reserve from 167 million up to 1.53 trillion. And the people living under the poverty level were reduced from 250 million to 23 million. China is a big country. Our population and foreign exchange reserves are second to none, so are the numbers of internet and mobile phone users. China's contribution to the global economy growth is just after the U.S., and our trade volume ranks the world's No. 3. The property of more than 310,000 families' is worth over 1 million USD, and this number will double by 2011. In the urban area, every 100 households possess 153 mobile phones, 47 computers and 4 automobiles. In retrospect of the fundamental changes occurred in the last 160 years, the Chinese people changed their life and promoted the progress of the mankind with their exploration and dedication.

Despite great achievements scored, China is still the world's biggest developing country. China's GDP per capita ranks behind 100 in the world. The GDP of China is over 10 times larger than that of Ireland, but it is just one thirtieth of Ireland in the per capita term. Chinese people's lives are still not prosperous, and quite a few salient problems hinder our progress, for instance, the discrepancy between the urban and the rural and between the east and the west, the depletion of natural resources and energy, the difficulty in maintaining a stable growth in agriculture and farmers' income. In addition, social security, employment, health care, education, housing and income distribution, all need further improvement. As Premier Wen Jiabao said, no matter how tiny a problem is, it will become huge in China once multiplied by 1.3 billion; no matter how big an economy is, it will become tiny once divided by 1.3 billion.

The Chinese Government is sober towards, confident in and capable of tackling these challenges. Our decision makers have put many concrete measures in place on the 17th CPC national congress concluded last October and the 11th national people's congress concluded 9 days ago. It will still take many years of dedicated efforts before we can have a new picture of China and change people's lives fundamentally. Under the guidance of the scientific thinking on development that puts people first and calls for comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development, we will give top priority to economic development, deepen reform and opening-up, upgrade people's welfare, work to build a harmonious society, and move steadily towards our development goals. We will concentrate on building up a moderately prosperous society for over one billion people in the next decades. To be concrete, by 2020, China's GDP is targeted to approximately 4 trillion US dollars with a per capita level of some 3,000 US dollars, and we will further develop the economy, progress in democracy, advance science and education, enrich culture, foster greater social harmony and upgrade the texture of life for the people.

Win-win Pattern and Common Development

China's development is peaceful, open, cooperative and harmonious in nature. We aim to build a harmonious society at home and work with other countries to build a harmonious world of enduring peace and common prosperity. China's development is deeply intertwined with the outside world. We go in line with the trend of economic globalization, and conduct international economic and technological cooperation to a greater extent, in a broader area and on a higher level, so as to push the economic globalization towards common prosperity. We proactively support the development of multilateral trade relations and regional economic cooperation, take an active part in the formulation and implementation of global economic and trading rules, and work together with other states to settle disputes and problems emerging out of the cooperation in order to advance a balanced and ordered development of the world economy. Since China's entry into WTO in December, 2001, we have honored our commitments and created favorable conditions for international economic and technological collaboration. Meanwhile, China is an active participant in the liberalization and facilitation of bilateral trade and investment, as China has concluded agreements or protocols with over 150 countries and regions on bilateral trade, with over 110 on protecting bilateral investment and with more than 80 on avoiding double taxation collection. We uphold achieving common development through mutual benefits, win-win solution and proper handling of trading disputes. We have been constantly tightening the protection of intellectual property rights through improving the relevant legal system, strengthening the law enforcement and rigorously cracking down every law violation.

China's growing participation into the global economic and technological cooperation provides numerous opportunities and gigantic markets to the rest of the world, and it's conducive to the reasonable and effective distribution of global resources. Many countries, particularly the developed, have gained affluent profits through investing in or trading with China. Furthermore, China's economy is complementary with or supplementary to the others'. Through the new international division of labor, China has already become an indispensable and integral part of the global industrial chain. Our imports hit 955.8 billion USD in 2007. And our demand in goods, by 2020, will quadruple on the basis of 2000. During this course, every country can find its own opportunity through cooperating with China, and as a result, it will drive the world economy up significantly. 

The Chinese Government and people remain cool-headed that China is still a developing country and there is still a long way to the destination of modernization. It serves the fundamental interests of the Chinese people to follow the road of peaceful development, and it is the objective requirement on developing the human society. We develop peacefully today, and will keep developing peacefully in the future while our economy is bigger. Our resolve of following such a peaceful development road is unswerving.

The Burgeoning Relations between China and Ireland

Ireland is a vigorous country of great history and splendid culture. I am deeply impressed by the harp music and the River Dance. Irish writers, such as Yeats, Bernard Shaw, Beckett, Heaney, Joyce, and Wilde, are renowned for their great contribution to world literature. In recent years, the China Ireland relations have been going smoothly, as illuminated by more and more bilateral political, economic, educational, scientific, and personnel exchanges and cooperation. China took Japan's place of Ireland's No. 1 Asian trading partner in 2005. And Ireland is already China's No.12 trading partner in the EU. According to the statistics from Irish sources, our trade exceeded 5.5 billion euros between January and November 2007. By the end of 2006, Ireland had 115 investment projects in China, around 300 Irish companies did business in China, and 455 Irish origin technologies had been introduced into China. In 2004, about 30,000 Chinese students studied here, making Ireland the No. 1 on receiving Chinese students in terms of proportion of the population. Some famous Irish universities, such as Trinity, UCD and UCC, have established some exchange mechanisms with their Chinese counterparts including Peking University, Tsinghua University and Fudan University. Moreover, two Confucius institutes were established in UCD and UCC. China and Ireland can draw from each other's strengths, and we are poised to join hands with the Irish people to further our all-around cooperation. 

China's Dedication to a Grand Olympic Games in Beijing, 2008

Almost everyone has some interests in Beijing Olympic Games now. Yesterday, we witnessed the Torch Lighting Ceremony in Athens. The 29th world summer Olympic Games, highlighted as a green, high-tech and people's Olympics, will be held in Beijing from August 8th to 24th, 2008. The whole nation is up for the preparation. Now all 37 gymnasiums and stadiums such as the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube are completed, and the organizer received more than 930,000 volunteer applications. During the event, Beijing will receive 105,000 athletes, 20,000 referees, and 30,000 journalists. Spectators will exceed 7 million person-times. All these record breaking figures will place the Beijing Olympic Games the largest ever in the history, and will vividly demonstrate China's interaction with the outside world.

The coming games will show the world that China is a responsible country committed to sustainable growth, harmonious society, sincere cooperation, and the world peace and development. The Olympic Games is a grand event for the Chinese people, and is expected anxiously by the people all over the world as well. Whereas, we have taken notice that some people, with prejudice even enmity towards China, are not happy to see Beijing hosting a successful Olympic Games. They are doing everything possible to sabotage the games. But I believe they will go nowhere, because their deeds run counter to the common aspiration of all the kindhearted people on this planet. The Chinese people have the resolve and ability to stage a magnificent Olympic Games. And the Irish athletes are most welcome to Beijing. I wish they bring glories home.

Thank you.