Mr
Chairperson, respected leaders of the mining industry, ladies and gentlemen;

Good
morning, Kiora, Nihao.

I
am very honoured to give a speech to the 2005 New Zealand
minerals conference. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere
thanks to the Ministry of Economic Development to invite me to be part of this
important event.

Today,
I am going to talk about two themes: a brief introduction of China's economic development, including
China's energy strategy; the
good bilateral relations between China and New Zealand, its
potential for further development and its relevance to our cooperation in the
field of minerals and energy.

It
is a well-known story that over the past 27 years, great changes have taken
place in China. In 1978 when
China's reform and opening up just
started, its gdp was near to only 150 billion usd dollars. By the year of 2004
it reached to 1.6 trillion usd, an average of yearly growth rate 9.4 per
cent.

China's great achievements are widely appreciated
both in China and abroad. China's
development has not only improved the living standard of its own people, but
also produced a huge market and brought about great opportunities for the world.
Since China's entry into WTO
in 2001, China has imported near to 1.8
trillion usd dollars of goods, averaging a yearly imports of 500 billion usd
dollars, creating for other countries and regions more than ten million
jobs.

Our
prediction is that in the next five years, China's imports
will be well over three trillion usd dollars. China will
continue to serve as one of the leading growth engines for the future world
economic development. Now China is on its great strive to
achieve the goals of improving living standard for all the Chinese people. We
are trying to reach a quadruple gdp of 2000 by the year of 2020, namely to reach
gdp four trillion usd, a gdp per capita 3000 usd dollars.