国际社会聚焦中国政府工作报告:"开放的中国充满希望"
开放是当代中国的鲜明标识.政府工作报告指出,五年来,中国坚定扩大对外开放,深化互利共赢的国际经贸合作.面对外部环境变化,实行更加积极主动的开放战略,以高水平开放更有力促改革促发展.
  连日来,国际社会热切关注中国政府工作报告释放的积极信号,高度评价中国对外开放成就.接受本报记者采访时,多位国际人士表示,开放的中国是全球之福,期待见证中国开放步伐,分享中国发展机遇.
  "中国经济奇迹离不开对外开放"
  "货物进出口总额年均增长8.6%,突破40万亿元,连续多年居世界首位,吸引外资和对外投资居世界前列""已设21个自由贸易试验区,海南自由贸易港建设稳步推进""新签和升级6个自贸协定,与自贸伙伴货物进出口额占比从26%提升至35%左右"......政府工作报告中一连串亮眼数据,记录下过去五年中国对外开放的累累硕果.
  "在今年中国的政府工作报告中,我发现,中国一边在进出口成本上做'减法',一边在提升进出口质量上做'加法'.这些都是中国扩大对外开放,推动进出口稳中提质的切实举措."马来西亚太平洋研究中心首席顾问胡逸山说,"通过出台外商投资法实施条例,不断优化外商投资环境,持续放宽外资市场准入,中国外汇服务更周到,货物通关更便利,招商引资力度更大,中国市场对外商也更有吸引力了."
  "中国经济奇迹离不开对外开放."在华40多年,印度工商会联合会执行主任阿都尔·达拉库提对中国经济社会发展变化深有感触,"稳外贸,稳外资,稳投资政策具有积极意义,有力推动了中国进出口增长,引来大批外国企业在华投资.更重要的是,中国确保了这些政策长期贯彻执行."
  "近年来,中国实行更加积极主动的开放战略,取得了举世瞩目的发展成就,也为世界经济注入动力."德国籍专家,北京师范大学珠海校区全球化与文化发展战略研究院特聘研究员大卫·巴拓识说.
  美国消费者新闻与商业频道网站援引瑞银报告称,中国供应链展现较强韧性,国际机构近期纷纷上调2023年中国经济增长预期.
  韩国外国语大学融合人才学部教授林大根表示,过去一年,中国克服疫情等因素影响,在对外经贸合作,人文交流等领域亮点频现.当前,中国积极推进高水平对外开放,将有望进一步密切中国与世界的联系.
  巴基斯坦智库全球丝绸之路研究联盟创始主席泽米尔·阿万认为,中国坚定不移扩大对外开放,不仅提高了中国人民生活水平,也为许多跨国企业来华投资兴业创造了机遇.相信中国将持续扩大对外开放,不断促进开放质量和水平提升.
  "让发展成果惠及全球"
  政府工作报告指出,五年来,"坚定扩大对外开放,深化互利共赢的国际经贸合作""坚定维护多边贸易体制,反对贸易保护主义""积极拓展全球伙伴关系,致力于建设开放型世界经济"......中国这些扩大开放的务实举措,获得国际社会高度赞誉.
  "通过扩大开放,中国既发展自身又造福世界."英国社会科学院院士罗伯特·沃克说,自加入世界贸易组织以来,中国发展成为全球第二大经济体,第一大货物贸易国,第一大外资吸引国.中国扩大对外开放,对全球财富的增长十分重要.过去十年,中国经济总量占全球经济比重由11.4ve, I often took foreign friends to visit watertowns, farm-stay hostels or strawberry-picking farms in outlying areas. We would pass by the small factories that mark the rural-urban conjunction. 
  "You didn't go far enough to find the real farming areas," said Zhu Xiaosheng, a Shandong native and former migrant factory worker, now based in Shanghai. "There have been a lot of changes over the last 10 years or so."
  Huang Baomei, the daughter of local farmers in Pudong, also didn't go far enough.
  "Ten years ago, even I wouldn't know where to find farmland," she said. "I know it was somewhere down the road, but I don't know exactly where and who was doing the farming."
  The city's rapid urbanization enticed thousands of people like Zhu from rural China and like Huang from outlying Shanghai to work in factories, many of which were located in suburban areas. They thought it was the door to a better life. But times have changed.
  In the last decade, more government focus has been placed on Shanghai's outlying rural areas, turning vast tracts of the city's fringe into the other side of the coin, where prosperity was concerned.
  yao minji / SHINE
   A grapefruit yard in Shuyuan County.
  Local residents like Zhu and Huang found themselves with more options than working in factories or moving into inner-city areas.
  It was 13 years ago when Zhu, then in his 40s, came to work in a factory in Shuyuan Town in the Pudong on the outskirts of Shanghai near the sea. A year later, he quit the job and returned to farming in the same area.
  "I didn't realize at the time that there was farming here in Shanghai," he recalled. "Compared with a factory job, I was more familiar with farming. Now there are many migrant farmers like me. Actually, most farmers in this area are not locals."
  According to the last agricultural census in Shanghai, done every 10 years, about 530,000 people were working in agriculture by 2016. Among them, more than 60 percent were aged 55 years and older, while fewer than 30,000 were 35 or younger.
  Today Zhu rents about 13,000 square meters of farmland and employs migrant farmers like himself. His pre-pandemic annual income exceeded 200,000 yuan (US$28,700), some of it from drive-by business.
  "Business should be good this year; look at all these cars," he told Shanghai Daily at a roadside produce retail site. "We get a lot of purchases from rural cooperatives and from people who drive past."
  yao minji / SHINE
   Zhu Xiaosheng who came to Shanghai as a migrant worker 13 years ago is now a migrant farmer who rents over 20 acres of land.
  Zhu mostly plants strawberries, adding varieties of melons in the summer.
  The saline soil near the sea is best suited for fruit production, especially grapes, strawberries and Shanghai's famed, super-sweet 8424 variety watermelon.
  The Tianbo agricultural cooperative, the largest in Shuyuan Town, purchases food from many migrant farmers like Zhu. The company also has its own farm land, employing with both native and migrant farmers.
  "When people say that Shanghai has changed so rapidly, they are mostly talking about urban Shanghai," said Liu Ren, general manager of Tianbo.
  "But the majority of Shanghai is actually more rural, and we have seen dramatic changes in the last decade. These outlying areas are cleaner, better planned and offer a more convenient lifestyle in a variety of ways."
  Liu, now 40, moved from an inner-city sales job back to his rural hometown about seven years ago.
  "I'm familiar with the area and 8424 watermelon cultivation," he said. "I saw huge potential here. Some young people are returning to rural areas, not to farm the land but to their expertise, like marketing, to help the local agricultural economy."
  Ti Gong
   Watermelon greenhouse owned by Tianbo
   Ti Gong
   Shanghai's famed, super-sweet 8424 variety watermelon
   Older people like Huang are also returning, though not necessarily to full-time farming. Not only has she returned to her hometown in suburban Shanghai and taken up farming as a hobby, but her children also have more opportunities than when Huang was young and everyone viewed factory work as a pot of gold.
  Huang was born in the 1960s to a local farm family, shortly after Shuyuan Town was administratively transferred to Shanghai from adjacent Jiangsu Province in 1958. After graduating from middle school, she went to work in small workshops, like most of her classmates.
  "I never worked on the land as such, apart from maybe helping my parents when I was very little," she recalled. "Everybody wanted to work in a factory back then. Everybody wanted to go to the cities."
  By the 1990s, Huang had her own small factory, employing about 20 workers and doing subcontracting work for local pen companies. She returned to her rural hometown around 2010, seeking a more relaxing pace of life.
  "With more time to spend, I took up farming in my own back yard, like most of my neighbors in the village," she said.
  "It's just for fun, not for business, so it isn't that tiring," she added. "My two kids don't really need to do grocery shopping, at least not for vegetables or chicken. They get the real farm-to-table food here."
  Her children and many of their friends don't harbor ambitions to "go to the cities." The nearby Lingang development zone provides a variety of different job opportunities that were previously non-existent. Huang's son works in an information technology company, and her daughter is an administrator at a child-care center.
  "Business has been up and down, but I'm still confident about my choice to return to suburban Shanghai," said Liu, the salesman-turned-agricultural manager. "I can see people, policy and planning converging, and that signals big potential ahead."
  yao minji / SHINE
   Huang Baomei and her neighbors pick up farming in their back yards as hobby.
  yao minji / SHINE
   Suburban Shanghai has been going through drastic changes.