Zhang Keyuan, Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to Malta

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Sixty years ago, with the end of the civil war, the late Chairman Mao Zedong declared to the whole world that the people of China had stood up. The founding father also predicted that "we Chinese nation had the ability to stand among the family of nations". Sixty years later, especially after the reform and opening up in the last 30 years, China has successfully built what we call "a socialism and a market economy with Chinese characteristics".

In 2008, with GDP reaching $3.86 trillion and per capita GDP hitting $2,770, China became the world's third largest economy.

Though satisfied with the achievements, we remain sober on the difficulties and challenges we are facing.

There are still 130 million Chinese living under $1 a day, 24 million new jobs are needed each year for youngsters, the economic development is uneven between urban and rural areas and among regions, and there are also problems and difficulties in the course of China's social transformation, just to name a few. Modernisation remains a long-term goal for China.

What was more, China was hit hard by the world economic crisis last year. Export dropped by 34 per cent, companies went out of business and thousands of workers lost their jobs, especially peasant workers who had migrated to cities during the economic boom.

Thanks to a strong stimulus plan of $600 billion, for better health care, better pensions, better education and a better infrastructure, which created a huge domestic demand, the economy stabilised in the second quarter of this year and started a strong rebound. There are predictions by several international financial institutions that China will come out of the crisis first and achieve an eight per cent growth this year, the highest in the world.

At the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, the US, last week, President Hu Jintao outlined China's stand on promoting the world economic recovery, reforming the international financial system and achieving a balanced and sustainable growth.

Mr Hu called on world leaders to make every effort to promote global economic growth and a comprehensive, balanced and sustainable socio-economic development. He emphasised that China will follow through its assistance pledges and offer more help to developing countries, particularly the least developed countries in Africa.

Another challenge China faces is climate change. We fully realise that the country is one of the largest carbon dioxide emitters in the world. On September 22, President Hu addressed the United Nations summit for climate change on China's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "Out of a sense of responsibility to the world," said the President, "China has taken and will continue to take determined and practical steps to tackle this challenge."

The President made it clear that China will intensify efforts to conserve energy and improve energy efficiency and endeavour to cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by a "notable margin" by 2020 compared to the 2005 level. He said China will adopt to further integrate actions on climate change into its economic and social development plan. He predicted that by 2020 the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption would be increased to about 15 per cent.

China does not make promises easily. Yet, once it talks the talk, it will walk the walk. For example, a few years ago, wind mills for electricity were only a new phenomenon in China, yet, today, China has become the fourth largest producer of wind-generated electricity in the world. China is also the number one producer of solar electricity. At the same time, we do the basics too. As Al Gore, former US Vice President and environmental activist, well put it: "It's not widely known in the rest of the world but China in each of the last two years has planted two and half times more trees than the entire rest of the world put together".

In the years to come, a greener and environmentally-friendlier China will take shape.

As one of the earliest western countries to recognise New China, Malta's relations with China has been running smoothly and healthily since 1972, so much so that it could be viewed as a model of equality and amity between countries with different population and sizes.

Recent years have witnessed gratifying exchanges and cooperation in various fields between our two countries. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had a good meeting with President Hu in Beijing last year and Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping paid an official visit to Malta last February; both meetings created immense momentum for our relations.

Our bilateral trade grew by 115 per cent in 2008 and again increased another 70 per cent in the first half of this year.

New opportunities of cooperation have been explored in the field of renewable energy and in connection with the upcoming 2010 Shanghai Expo. A language teaching facility in Malta is to be launched soon. All these developments testify to the vigour and vitality of our relations. And, in this regard, I take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation to the government and people of Malta for the support and assistance we have been rendered along all these years.

May the friendship and cooperation between China and Malta grow ever stronger.