Speakers examine whether China’s economy has fully matured as a global force, discussing its development model, innovation, and role in the world’s economic future at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2026
At Davos 2026, panelists debated whether China’s economy has “fully emerged” amid tariffs, weak consumption, and a property downturn. Zhu Min argued the last five years were “not easy” (Covid, a halving of housing sales, local debt), yet China avoided a systemic real-estate crisis—“almost magic.” The core lesson: the old model of property, local financing, infrastructure, and exports must give way to a “mature new growth model” centered on technology, manufacturing upgrading, and domestic consumption.
Eswar Prasad cautioned that headline resilience masks deeper issues. China’s export diversification helped absorb the US tariff wall, but a $1.2 trillion trade surplus signals “deep structural imbalances,” raising the risk of more global trade barriers. Sustainable growth, he argued, requires stronger private-sector confidence and more effective financial markets.
Business leaders pointed to tangible shifts. JD.com’s Sandy Xu said stimulus and trade-in programs lifted early-2025 demand, but momentum faded; she urged easing home and car purchase restrictions and expanding targeted support. UnionPay’s Dong Junfeng described consumption rotating from goods to services and from top-tier cities to smaller cities, with Gen Z favoring “customized experience.” Hong Kong Exchanges’ Carlson Tong reported capital-market revival—“uninvestable” became IPO-leading—while warning investors to separate durable AI value from fashion. On renminbi internationalization, optimism was tempered: progress is real, but trust, liquidity, and openness remain prerequisites.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for running all the way amid all the traffic jams to be here for this morning's session. And of course, I'm very important topic. China's economy. This is a joint session between the World Economic Forum annual meeting and CGTN China Global television Network. I'm Tianwei, the moderator coming from CGTN. It's such a pleasure to see all of you here on the stage and off the stage with us. Our topic today, Chinese economy fully emerged. Question mark. But I really wonder when we are sitting here today looking at all the changes of the world, how many of us still have that question mark in mind? Having said that though, let's take a look at the important topic we are going to handle today. I will say that within one minute, because we have so many real insiders to share their opinions. Over the past four decades, China has managed to test and also move in a hybrid development model, which involves planning, innovation, integration. Now we are seeing a complex backdrop of geopolitics, geoeconomics, and certainly technological innovation as well. And China's economy is not like yesterday either. So what does that mean for the Chinese economy? Is it fully emerged? What does that mean for the rest of the world? Now we have a very strong panel, thanks to the forum, to be with us, to share from their own perspective. Without further ado, let me introduce briefly everyone of them. I will go with the seating order from my very near left Mr. Dong Zhenfeng, chairman of China UnionPay from China. Good to see you, sir. Sandy Shiran, chief executive officer of JD.com from China. Thank you, doctor Zhu Min, member of the senior expert advisory Committee with China Center for International Economic Exchanges, known as CCI and also a member of the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum. Thank you, Doctor Zhu, for being with us. Thank you. As for Prasad, the professor with Cornell University from the US, he's working on a latest book about how the world economy is doing, especially China's. Last, but certainly not least, on the very far right, we have, Carlson Tong, chairman of the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing and also, China from the community of chairpersons. Thank you so much for being with us. Now, when we begin today's conversation, it is important that we reflect back a little bit, but not too far away. Just the year 2025, which has been marked globally by a tariff war, by one largest economy of the world against the rest of the world. So how has China's economy survived this? And as a result of that, what have we learned about the characteristics of the Chinese economy so far? Doctor Zhou, go to you.
Oh, wow. It will take me three hours.
Well, you have only one minute. The most one and a half.
Okay, okay. I think we should extend a little longer. I mean, past five years was not easy for China. I have to say that, Covid at first, then steel sector collapse, right? China sell apartments roughly one point 7,000,000,000m² in 2017. But today in half, 850 million, I mean, it's half of real estate is gone. It's absolutely a big challenge. Local financial platform also in big deaths and consumption was weak. So the five year was not easy. But China managed through with a macro policy. And we particularly on the real estate sector without a systemic crisis, I think this is not an easy it's almost magic now. But move into today we learn. The big lesson we learned is we need to change our growth model. We cannot continue on real estate sector, local financing, infrastructure, investments, exports. Right. We need to move to a new growth model. I think this is a big lesson. So this year and the next five years, China will move into a very mature new growth model. Emphasize a few things. Number one, technology. Technology emphasizes of course, artificial intelligence is one US. China is competed on the frontier. You know fundamental studies US still lead. But in application China in some way lead already because US is GA China's agar you know so us GA generative artificial Asia. China's US general China's generative. So this is very different China emphasize you know really on the application application vertical using in all the sectors. And because it's open source it's cheap Chinese model. Right. So you will see the whole world will come Chinese model. By the way, the most popular Chinese model in us used is Alibaba secure cheap small adaptive. You can take the model back to your company, tailor it to yourself, start with one. So I think that will. But new technologies started with quantum computing. It moved very fast with different Americans do on the general purpose. But China's on the specific functions like D-Wave. If you know the quantum computer is moving very fast currently it's a model specific functional models run. It's 100 million times faster than current and compute. Fusing energy is another big tech sectors. They go best. China has a market equipment from Russia around 50 years, but now move to the laser beam systems and very head to head with us fusing. I think this is a big physics AI plus robot China account for 52% of global investments in robot industry and have half of global robot in China. So that's a so tech is making sure I know you have to give me another 20s. I mentioned two things. The second issue is manufacturing upgrading move to the frontier. The third is domestic consumption. I think it's absolutely important we trade war outside. You have to focus on domestic consumption. Service sector is a big issue. The fourth issue China Capital will go abroad. I think going abroad is a big thing in China. So for the whole world, I think the implication is really domestic markets going to open and Chinese capital, particularly private sector capital, will go abroad. I think those are very big things.
Thank you very much, Doctor Zhou, that's a beautiful opening. Thank you for setting the stage. But I do not want to escape from the topic of tariff because we have Professor Prasad over there. After all, that's a topic. That's with all of us still today. So, Professor Prasad, how has China managed the landscape last year with the hunting knife of tariff, shall we say, on the head? And what does that say about the characteristics of the Chinese economy? What does that mean for the for everybody sitting here today who are also thinking about the same question?
The point that, Doctor Ju made about the need for China to rebalance and restructure its economy, I think is really important, not just for China itself, but for the entire world. The tariff wall that the US has put up against China and many other countries, of course, has certainly led China to react by diversifying its exports. But as Doctor Zhou pointed out, one of the key aspects of growth over the last 4 or 5 years in the post-Covid period is the reliance on the old playbook of credit financed investment growth, which has driven the economy. Now, investment is not necessarily a bad thing, but this is happening at a time when real estate investment and other aspects of private investment are not doing that well because of a lack of confidence in the economy. So this is largely been public investment, and not all of it is really profitable or very efficient. So it doesn't really address what Doctor Zhou pointed out. The economy needs to be doing. So what China has done because of the enormous imbalance building up in the domestic economy, is to diversify its exports. And it's been tremendously successful. Now, China, of course, is an exporting powerhouse. But the question is whether the world can really deal with the second largest economy in the world needing it to pull it along, rather than China like after the global financial crisis, pulling the world along. So last year, as we know, China recorded a trade surplus of $1.2 trillion. And that is good for China at one level. And it shows how much China is able to power through with its exports. But it's a real problem, I think, both for China, because it shows how deep the structural imbalances are in China. But also it is a problem for the world economy. And I worry that between US tariffs and Chinese exports, we're going to see trade barriers rising up around the world. So I think it's very important that China fix this not just for its own sake, but also for the sake of the rest of the world. Now, in terms of what needs to be done, I think the leadership understands what needs to be done after you laid it out. And we've seen this in the documents, the real question is whether there is the urgency, the ability to push forward what is really needed in order to accomplish those objectives.
Thank you so much for giving another perspective. Having said that, though, we want to put a footnote here. The deficit and the surplus. We are talking about a lot of it is about, goods surplus. That's correct. Not services. As we know, China is the one of the largest, holder of service trade deficit in the world. And it seems that according to the vice premier yesterday, China is enjoying it rather than the other way around. But having said that, though, who am I here to comment? We have so many experts here because they know the exact data. You talk about how China's economy needs to be restructured, so consumption is crucial. I want to go to Ron first before we go to the banking sector to know more how the Chinese consumers are doing. So, Ron, tell me, how are the policymakers, the private sector, the business community, how do these factors work together in terms of setting a landscape to encourage Chinese domestic consumption, given your perspective? Thank you.
Thank you for the question. I think Doctor Zhou just had a point that the consumption was weak last year. I would say from our observation that, yes, we were facing challenges in domestic consumption as well. So thanks to the stimulus policy, at the beginning of last year, especially the consumption products trading program, so that we really saw a noticeable growth momentum in the first half year of 2025. However, the momentum slowed down in the second half year. And I would say, based on current data, we are still facing short term, challenges in the near future for domestic consumption. Having said that, we believe there are still lots of things we could do to further enhance consumption. You know, in the areas like service consumption, rural markets and sustainable or green products and, so, so and also innovations really, really drive new consumption demands across all categories. Like Doctor Zhu just mentioned that currently we see that, you know, products with AI capabilities are really generating new consumption trend, including AI, robots, glasses, etc.. And so so we can see that, you know, from the policy perspective, things are moving towards the right direction. So, so consumption boosting consumption is the top priority for both the five year plan, and the Central Economic Work Conference. And we can also see that the trading program will continue in 2026 to support daily spending. And we would, if we may, you know, suggest the policy makers to further consider a few areas. One is that further relaxing restrictions on buying homes and cars in China? And then secondly, to, roll out additional stimulus policies in categories with big ripple effect like baby and mom products, healthcare products and service consumption. So for GDP, we are really investing because we are in this industry. So we work very, very hard to drive consumption demand. And we invested heavily in R&D resources last year to, help launch the trading program to make sure that the consumers, they can have smooth shopping experience when enjoy the benefit of the trade in policy. And also we invested, I think nearly 30 billion RMB in the rural market to really expand logistics infrastructure in towns and villages, you know, so that the users there can enjoy faster and more reliable delivery services. And, you know, we also invested in promotion, marketing and also enhanced customer services for users in the lower tier markets. And finally, you know, we we have a pretty large user base. So we work with brands, manufacturers to develop the products so that they can easily catch or quickly catch the emerging trends of consumption.
Right? I do not want to do any promotion for any company, but your case study is very important. So it's very important for our audience to understand what kinds of user base you are talking about. What is the number, how large is it so that everybody has a picture of what they can embrace? Please.
Yeah. So by.
Just one sentence or two please.
Yeah. Q4 2025, our annual active customer base was 700 million okay.
Got it. All right. Go to you, Mr. Zhong. From the payment perspective, Shi Zhang got it. From what company's perspective? But you got the massive number Ninja.
But you have all the data.
Taking place in terms of the trends. Chinese domestic consumption. How is the policy and the business community really shaping the overall picture? What about this day to day massaging and negotiation among the different factors of the Chinese economy that we are seeing today? Okay.
So UnionPay, we're also a clearing institution. Yeah. As you mentioned that we have a lot of data. Yes, indeed. So we have more than 1 billion transactions per day and 1 trillion RMB in terms of volume. So you can see we can we are kind of like a barometer of the consumption in China. The Chinese government, has been balancing, consumption and exporting, consumption, contributes 53% of the GDP. So from our observation, we see several trends. First of all, in the past we used to buy goods. So we have surpluses in terms of goods. And now people are buying purely goods. And it has been a shift to buying services. So we see people the generation Z, they're no longer buying luxury brands. They want some more customized, customized experience. They like more niche brands. So that's why some Chinese companies, Chinese brands, they use AI to extract, the market insight, market intelligence, to provide customized products, customized services. And as we mentioned, everything has to be fast. There's another trend. So, consumption in big cities are relatively mature. The consumption pattern has been matured, whereas middle size or smaller size cities from our, from our data, we can see that growth actually comes from these rural areas, smaller cities. We saw that, luxury consumption happens only in big cities. Actually, it's it's not really the case in rural areas. There are also this offering of high end brands and high end services. So from these, trends, we can see that China is rebalancing at this moment. Policies from, the government and, the regulation authority, they're promoting this shift. So we're based in Shanghai, the Shanghai government. They are very, they they really tried to promote consumption in all areas, in healthcare, in education, not only for locals, but also for foreigners, in which UnionPay, we offer a lot of data for insight. So this is only exemption in Shanghai. In other cities, they have their way of promoting domestic consumption.
Capital market reading. You know, the signs coming from China's domestic consumption and this apparent transformation we are talking about.
Thank you for your question. If I may share with you an overview of the capital market in Hong Kong. There's Hong Kong Connect China, new growth Asian with global capital. And by channeling the investment, into high tech manufacturing, into green energy transition and emerging market and also connect, Chinese mainland investors into the global capital market through Hong Kong. Now, to give you some indication that just under 2400 company listed on stock exchange, about 65% of them are Chinese enterprises, and they come for between 70 to 80% of the market cap of all, the composition is about 6 trillion USD. So you can see, in fact, Chinese companies play a very major part on the Hong Kong stock market. And also through the connect scheme, which was established ten years ago, it enables overseas investors to invest through Hong Kong into the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock market, recorded a-shares and also enable Chinese mainland investors through Hong Kong to invest in global stock. Through ETF, you can global stocks so Hong Kong connect China, mainland, Chinese mainland with the rest of the world. That's very important. Now 18 months ago, if you remember reading newspaper they say China and Hong Kong is uninvestable. If you remember now, if you look back in 2025, it was transformational. A year ago when I was here, I couldn't believe that market would experience. Give you some example, Hong Kong stock market is ranked number one in IPO fundraising. We raised 36 billion USD. Number one in the world. We listed 119 companies. Two third of them are Chinese new economy companies in, biotech, pharmaceutical, high tech. So all the growth engine that China under 55 year plan wants the country and also companies to to to specialize in and in terms of turnover, turnover average day one is very important because you need turnover to stimulate the market. Right. Without turnover it doesn't work. And turnover is 33 US billion dollars. And that is double what it was 2024. Now in fact now if you look into 2026 where present handling over 350 IPO listing record high in January alone we received 49 listing applications. I mean this is amazing. And so we talked about the tariff. You thought, wow, it has affected Hong Kong. But in fact I think the tariff geopolitics, the volatility uncertainty actually drives global investors to diversify their investment portfolio into gold and also in other parts of world in Asia, and also, of course, Hong Kong and China. So in fact, Hong Kong benefited from this volatility. And it's been the the stock market reflected it. Okay.
So it seems that Professor Prasad, every one of them are sharing good news. Is that the real picture of the Chinese economy.
The question is what is happening on the surface and what is happening beneath the surface? On the surface? Certainly the fact that you saw 5% growth last year and you could register 5% growth this year is very good. The question is whether this is coming at the cost of deepening the structural imbalances in the economy, the ones that Doctor Zhu referred to, and whether the structural problems that could impede long term growth. You know, the, certainly demographics is going to be, downshifting, but also you need the financial markets to be working better. You need not just, macroeconomic stimulus, but you need private sector confidence, which is really important for both private investment as well as household consumption. So all of those indicators are not doing that. Great. So on the surface great. But I think a lot needs to be fixed.
Wow. Interesting. So let's go into some of the questions. Once again you just raised. So one of the things is whether China's growth will be sustainable. It will be sustainable based on what if you look at the earlier outline, I think at the end of 2025, when China put forward the 15th five year plan, which is likely to be further discussed for the year 2026 and implemented AI plus, as Doctor Zhu already mentioned, is one of the driving force. Now, many people characterize the US approach for AI is so-called reaching for the stars. With AGI, China is more AI plus, so on that. Whether that could be a growth engine, a new momentum for sustainable growth. I want to come to you, Mr. Dong, how do you see AI in your sector? Is that AI plus really likely not going to be superficial, but rather integrated and bring new growth? For real, please?
So Professor Drew mentioned earlier that the AI sector is, is very dynamic in China, but on the promenade, we do see a lot of AI advertisements in Davos. So UnionPay is a payment network, a global network. We've been looking into the AI application in our service. So we have, we work with clearing institution. We work with merchants. So in our ecosystem, everybody is looking into AI AI's application. So, the major internet companies. They. So they create their own large language models. And on top of that, so we also create our model, our vertical model. We invested largely in these vertical models. We work with research institutions, with universities to feed in transaction data and also to understand who are our clients. And we feed into this vertical model. And then the model, provide us some insight and insight can help us, make better offerings. AI is also very good at communication. So in our UnionPay app. We have we have a new app called Nihao. Hello. So this is for foreigners visiting China. You can they can use their own mother tongue in French and English. And they can use our app no matter what they're doing. They're taking a bus. They're shopping in supermarkets. This app, they can provide different services for for foreigners. Another point I would like to mention is. Is, harmonization. So we provide AI service for our chatbot for customers. So maybe in the future it's our robot buying things from JD. So we have to make sure that regulation is very clear. And also has to know that whether or not the agent really represents me and we have to take care of, regulations, how to regulate these new technologies, these new developments. It is an ethical issue. It is it is also a harmonization of different standards globally.
China is testing about the AI governance first domestically and how it can work with the rest of the world. Since you are already mentioned Dan's name and her and her services. So let me go to Ron before I go to the other, speakers. So a platform like yours with the number you have already mentioned to our audience, what does that mean? AI plus to you, how you can also take advantage of that, but at the same time be able to feed back what is needed, both policy wise, investment wise, and also your interaction with your consumers. Please.
Yeah. So, maybe let me elaborate from two aspects. One is on the consumption related to AI products, and second is on the application in our internal workflow. So on the application, on the consumption side, really 2025 was a breakout year for AI products. So I can share some very interesting data on our platform. On the sales side, for any products with a keyword in their product name or product description of smart. So we saw the sales doubled in 2025 compared to same period last year, and also for the products with real AI capabilities like robots and glasses. Their sales grew by three and ten times respectively. However, really the sales of robots were limited by supply. Otherwise the growth will be even stronger and the search data was even more dramatic. So we saw, you know, search volume for all AI related products. Sky rocketed by 100 times in 2025. And also we did a customer survey related to their interest in AI products. Nearly 50% of the customers told us that AI is a must have function. So, so all these tell us that there is a clear consumption trend for AI related products, and AI function was no longer a nice to have feature. It's a must have core product value to drive consumption and growth in the retail industry. So with this trend, we actually are we were working closely with our business partners to develop co-develop products that meet the consumers demands. So recently we just launched our private label AI toy backed by large language models. And also we work very closely with home appliance and electronic products manufacturers to enable the AI features. So so this is on the consumption side.
And just a footnote. As people know, China is the largest market in the world for home appliance, for mobile phones and for cars. Okay. Go ahead please.
Thank you for the comment. Yeah. And then on the application side, you know, I heard that everyone in the forum these two days were talking about AI application. So I wouldn't elaborate in too much details. But you know, we are training our own model and we are, you know, utilizing all kinds of agents to help us generate additional sales. You know, for example, the, AI, AI shopping agents and we are testing our AI shopping app and independent app from our main app and also using the digital human live streaming. Maybe next year we could, you know, use digital for for the panel discussion. And then,
I want it to be in person, please. Pulling jokes aside please. Conclusion.
So, so then on the, you know, you know, operation efficiency side, you know, AI is really everywhere nowadays coding, customer services, marketing, advertising. So so it's developing so fast. It's actually changing every day.
You can see Chinese entrepreneurs when it comes to AI. Plus they just cannot stop cannot stop. So so I have to stop you right here and go to a chosen Carlson. Because Carlson you can tell us what are the investors? I mean, when we talk about AI, there's of course talks about, you know, overheating and this and that and early stage or not. But on the other hand, the mood of the investors is for real. So, not only AI but also other innovations such as clean energy and some of the areas Doctor Zhu also mentioned about the new innovation. Do you see investors enthusiasm is durable or it is only quick money coming in, coming out?
Yes. Now, in fact, it's interesting, the innovation in clean energy and AI, especially in our integration, is attracting a lot of interest in the capital market. Obviously there's increased funding from private equity venture capital into AI integration and, and clean energy, businesses. And also on the IPO platform, we're seeing a lot of AI and clean energy coming to list. And for example, for for this year, we listed two very major large language model companies from China. One is minimax. That was a GPU and very, very successful, IPO. But I think we do need to be careful in distinguishing long term sustainability to immediate popularity and trend and fashion. I think because you need the market to validate it. So you need to watch long term. Do they generate revenue? I mean, that's very important. And also, do they have patterns, for example, can they get patterns. Is that technical longevity? And how about the financial performance. Are they generating revenue. Profit. Right. Have they got long term contracts? I think we got to watch all this to distinguish between the real McCoy, the real ones and those who are just catching the fashion, because otherwise you can see the market chasing AI. But you do need to spot those investors who can separate between the two types would be the one that would benefit in the future.
There are worries that the world will be divided into separate systems. We are already seeing emergence of that. Do you see investors are also divided in their choices, or they're rather having a full portfolio of all the exposures?
I mean, I've been.
Very briefly from you, and then we go to.
The others. I've been listening to various AI speakers, the last couple of days, very, very interesting. And I think it is about, the sovereignty of AI, the large language model. I mean, do you have a universal large language model incorporating data from all over the world, or. I'm getting a feeling that, you know, even the European Union, they should have their own AI, they should have their own large language model. So I think there could be some separation that different countries might create their own large language model. I think that could be, the future trend, I don't know. I mean, obviously it is still early days to decide what is the long term future of AI.
We only have very limited minutes. So for such a, you know, big topic today. So, Doctor Zhou, I want to come back to you about China and the global economy. The complexity of geopolitics and geoeconomics. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't have to explain here. I mean, you are dealing with on a minute basis. But, Doctor Zhou, how is China calmly observing what is going on every day and carefully chooses its own approach with others as we speak?
Well, I just mentioned when I opened the talk, I think China realized, I mean, you cannot depend on real estate exports and credit increases. As I mentioned, you have to move to your own solid foot. That's domestic market. So everything is focused on domestic market technology and manufacturing consumption and all focus on domestic market. I think this is the most important thing. China is very serious concern. Many people mentioned on that because we have no choice. Right? I mean, given the very volatile external international environment. So you've got to boost domestic consumption, make sure your growth is on your own foot. So China this year made it very clear. The policy is say the consumption growth was stronger than GDP growth. That's a KPI you consume more need money. So income growth will be higher than GDP growth. That's the KPI. Budget was spent more portion of money to support the conservancy and the social program, including education, healthcare, pension, all those things and including subsidy on consumption, 15% on your purchase of durable goods. Yeah. So this is a very seriously move into domestic consumption. One thing, one fourth, the technology is the second. Fourth, as I mentioned, everybody mentioned that China is moving very, very fast. Not only are just as a quantum computing, nuclear fusion and physics AI, that's the future. And the third leg is further improve the manufacturing and combine them with artificial intelligence technology. So Chinese manufacturing in the past 45 years, the first 20 years mainly in China, is cheap. The second 20 years made China's cheap and good. So next 20 years is making China cheap, good and high tech.
Yeah, but that is only one aspect of the answer. I know Doctor Zhou, you know, the whole overall comprehensive answer. But let me move to Carlson on an important aspect. Everybody is thinking about it right now, even though some of them may not say it. For example about currency. The financial structure since World War two has a lot to do with how currency is being used. How do you see the internationalization of R&B looking at China's, you know, track record and also what China has learned over the past few years about economic and global integration. How is that currency swap working so far in terms of proportion? What does that mean for the major currency in the world?
Yes.
You have 1.5 minute, my friend.
It's a very interesting question. I mean, clearly you're seeing that a slowly increasing trend of using renminbi in, for example, trade finance. I mean, the trade finance payment, I think represents the number three in the world. Right. And then the currency payment is number four in the world. So clearly with China opening up, opening up its trade system network and also foreign investment, they will be increasing demand for renminbi, there's no doubt. But you do need to have a strong infrastructure behind it and building up a liquidity pool, for example, increasing more, swap between central banks. I mean, all those need to be in place, but one I think, interesting, area which I think could, fasten the pace of renminbi internationalization is the use of the central bank digital currency. I think that is something which you can see it's having a wider application, because it's fast, it's cheap, and you can use it for international settlements. So I think this is one area where you can see growth prospects. But I do feel that renminbi internationalization is here to stay. It's real, but it will take time. You need a strong infrastructure. You need to build up. The liquidity ecosystem is not as straightforward as we might imagine, right?
I can tell Professor Prasad cannot wait because he wrote a book about, currency. And relatedly, he is also having a new book called The Doom Loop. How the World Is Looking at the Economic Order and related questions. So, Professor Prasad, you want to briefly respond one minute if you can, sir.
It's a time of tremendous opportunity, I think, for the Chinese economy and for the Chinese currency. There is a desperate desire and, rest of the world outside the US to diversify away from the dollar. China is becoming and has become a major power, both in terms of GDP and in terms of global trade. So it would be logical and natural that the renminbi plays a bigger role in international finance and as a reserve currency. But China needs to do certain things. You spoke about the infrastructure. There is the technical infrastructure of currency trading, but also the regulatory infrastructure that needs to inspire the trust of foreign investors. But in addition, there are some key attributes that the reserve currency needs to satisfy. The fact that the value of the currency is largely determined by the markets rather than controlled by the central bank, and that you have a much more open capital account so that capital can both come in and come out relatively freely. And there have been a number of measures through the connect schemes and so on, to open up the Chinese economy. But the question is whether the belief of both domestic and foreign investors that these are durable measures, so that the Chinese economy will remain open in terms of the capital account, that's the key issue. So I think it can happen, but it will take some work in terms of policies.
Go to you, Mr. Dong, on that too. I mean, how do you see, since you are working in the payment industry, that's so much related, how do you see China is looking at this role more integrated with the rest of the world? It is not, you know, China become part of the world now we are part of the world. It's about how what is the next stage and what is the end goal here, Mr. Dong?
So we see all the, all the tensions around the world, all the conflicts around the world. We see a very fragmented picture right now from a payment perspective. Buying and paying is a very natural, interaction between humans. For the last few years, we've been, applying international standards in union pay. So now we have interoperability with other, digital wallets, in other countries, more than in 50 markets. So. So this is a parallel system to our union pay system. So this is what we're doing when it comes to internal, internationalization. So this is our effort in this front.
And I want to go to the last two speakers who haven't spoke. What do you think this general question, China with the world when it comes to integration, innovation and further growth. Yeah. Yeah.
So from our perspective, we're really building a global supply chain that could, you know, facilitate transactions both ways. So not just one way. So we do have some program to introduce the high quality global brands products to the Chinese consumers. So, so, so that we can create value for the entire industry society.
Thank you so much. And Doctor Zhou, last but not least.
I think for the whole world, China will open domestic market and bring in more service, particularly service imported I think will be very important challenges to work abroad, particularly private capital. I think it will be beneficial for the whole whole world as well. And China will export more artificial intelligence and along with the other countries, need particularly SMEs and all those things. So I think those things China can do with the world.
Thank you very much. We have only 17 seconds. But I do want to ask our organizers, is it permitted that we have two more minutes so that. No, no. Okay. Got it. See, we follow the rule of law. Okay. All right then. So I want to thank so much the panelists sitting on the stage with us. I mean, all of you have reached resources to share with all of us. And you try to be concise and precise. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And all of you. Thank you.