Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, �

It is a pleasure to join you at the China Development Forum to reflect on how macroeconomic policy can support high-quality development. 

As China embarks on the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan, the focus is on high quality growth – more steady, more balanced, more resilient and more future-oriented. 

From the perspective of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, we see macroeconomic policies applied across our member economies with diverse country contexts, but also with many shared lessons. One lesson stands out: High-quality development depends on maintaining stable economic growth while advancing economic transformation. 

Here are some observations: 

First, effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative expansion are inseparable. 

Quality and growth – this is not a question of which is more important, but part of one integrated process. Growth serves as the vehicle for quality and is propelled by transformation. China today is navigating the need to achieve both near-term development goals and a deeper structural transition. Macroeconomic and structural policies must continue to foster stable growth and support its drivers. Growth will be achieved alongside deep transformation – toward stronger domestic demand, toward innovation-driven productivity, and toward greener and more sustainable development. The question is not to choose between these objectives, but to harmonize them. 

Second, effective coordination between fiscal and monetary policy can significantly strengthen domestic demand. 

Across countries, fiscal policy plays a central role in supporting domestic demand and shaping the structure of growth, through public investment, through social protection and through the incentives it creates for households and firms. Monetary policy can expand fiscal space by setting appropriate levels of interest rates and by ensuring that financing remains accessible during the course of structural adjustment. Debt sustainability is not only about the absolute size of debt, but also about whether the economic growth rate exceeds the interest rate. When fiscal and monetary policies reinforce each other, they can stabilize economic growth while creating space for transformation. 

Third, international cooperation can help shape new strengths of global trade and two-way investment. 

High-quality development does not occur in isolation. In an increasingly complex global environment, international cooperation remains essential. As indicated in the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan, China, as a large-scale economy, will pursue both domestically driven growth and further opening up. By boosting domestic demand, China can achieve a more sustainable trade pattern, with both strong imports and exports, supporting more balanced global demand. Through the export of capital goods, green products and technologies, and through overseas investment, China can also contribute to industrialization in developing economies, alongside other international partners, and to the provision of global and regional public goods. 

Ladies and gentlemen, 

AIIB, as a multilateral development bank, supports both economic transformation and international cooperation. The Bank’s mission is to finance infrastructure for tomorrow and promote regional cooperation in Asia and beyond. Our investment priorities include climate change and energy transition, cross-border infrastructure connectivity, technology-enabled infrastructure and private sector development in member economies. 

China is the initiator, major shareholder and longstanding development partner of AIIB, alongside a broad membership of partners. The Bank will continue to support our members’ efforts to pursue high-quality, sustainable development – by investing in infrastructure, connectivity and cooperation that underpin long-term growth. 

Thank you.