China advances further in opening-up: report says

China has achieved remarkable progress in its opening-up path, according to the latest World Openness Report 2024.

Between 2008 and 2023, China's openness index rose to 0.7596 from 0.6789, up by 11.9 percent, which was among the biggest advancements globally.

The latest edition of the World Openness Index, gauging the openness levels of worldwide economies, was released on Tuesday at the 7th Hongqiao International Economic Forum in Shanghai.

Last year, China ranked 38th in terms of openness among 129 economies, one place up compared with 2022.

The flagship World Openness Report 2024 aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the latest global trend in opening-up and the progress made by various countries, thereby further strengthening the consensus on promoting global opening-up.

The index was first released in 2021 and seeks to analyze the global trends in opening-up, economic governance, global trade and investment.

The conference on World Openness report 2024 and International Symposium on Status Quo and Prospect of World Opening-up was hosted by the Institution of World Economics and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Hongqiao Forum Research Center.

About a third of around 800 professionals, think tank experts and business leaders surveyed between August and September this year believe the world will be "less open" in next one to three years.

As many as 29 percent believe the main forces driving the world opening-up trend are Asian economies, while around 24.6 percent point to North American economies.

Singapore was the most open economy in 2023, topping the list of 129 economies in terms of openness.

Over the past 16 years since 2008, it has remained world's most open economy for nearly a decade (from 2015 to 2023).

Ireland ranked second in the openness index rankings in 2023, moving up two positions compared to 2022.

Hong Kong ranked third, followed by Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Switzerland, Malta, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

On a global perspective, economic and culture openness both narrowed, while social openness widened, and despite opening-up policies continuing to improve, opening-up performance weakened.

Geographically, openness rebounded the most in regions such as East Asia and the Pacific region, Latin America and the Caribbean, while South Asia, North America, Europe and Central Asia recorded declines.

Five of the nine members of the BRICS group, namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, were sampled for the World Openness Index and their comprehensive index went up 0.5 percent from a year earlier, and the openness gap between the BRICS countries and the world average level continued to narrow down.

Opening up is still required for the world economy to charter new development paths despite challenges and setbacks in the near term, according to leading experts, and economists and corporate executives who are calling on better collaboration from various stakeholders.

In-depth discussions were held regarding the latest hot topics on global opening-up, China's measures and achievements in expanding high-standard opening up, and suggestions were offered for the positive evolution of economic globalization, contributing Chinese wisdom to build an open world economy.

Huang Qifan, former mayor of Chongqing and executive vice chairman of the Academic Committee of the National Innovation and Development Strategy Research Association, also noted that the long-term opening-up trend is irreversible despite near-term fractions and setbacks.

Alf Barrios, Rio Tinto executive committee member and China chair, noted that opening up lies in the foundation of innovation which is key part of multinational companies' initiative.