A year’s plan begins with spring. I noticed that Jamaica’s recently held 2025-26 Budget Debate attracted widespread attention.

Coincidentally, Chinese people are also drawing up a blueprint for the new year from the other side of the world.

The 2025 China ‘Two Sessions’ (officially the Third Session of the 14th National People’s Congress and the Third Session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) successfully concluded.

Nearly 3,000 deputies to the National People’s Congress and more than 2,000 members of the CPPCC gathered in Beijing to discuss state affairs. The report on the work of the government released on the ‘Two Sessions’ merged the wisdom of nearly 4,000 opinions and more than 2 million suggestions from netizens.

It demonstrates the surging vitality of the whole-process people’s democracy. The ‘Two Sessions’ is a window for the world to observe China’s governance. This year, it focused on themes such as high-quality development and high-level opening up, showing the panorama of China’s efforts to promote high-quality development and Chinese modernisation.

China’s high-quality development has become a driver of growth for the world economy. China’s solid performance has been consolidated and steady progress has been made in the last year.

The size of the economy has been constantly expanding, with a GDP of US$18.8 trillion and a 5.5 per cent increase, one of the fastest among the world’s largest economies. China’s contribution to global economic growth remains around 30 per cent.

DeepSeek has stunned the world, humanoid robots have speeded up the application process, and quantum computer prototypes have once again broken world records.

Looking ahead to 2025, China will follow the general tone of seeking progress while maintaining stability, solidly promote high-quality development and cultivate future industries such as biomanufacturing, quantum technology, embodied intelligence and 6G to drive new quality productivity.

China’s high-level opening-up has become a new high ground for international cooperation. Investing in China means investing in the future. No matter what the external environment, China has consistently maintained its commitment to opening up, stabilising foreign trade development, encouraging foreign investment, promoting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation at the bilateral, regional and multilateral level.

China has become a major trading partner for over 150 countries and regions, and last year the number of newly created foreign-invested enterprises increased by 9.9 per cent. China has become the second-largest trading partner in Latin America and the Caribbean and a major trading partner for many countries in the region.

China has also signed FTAs with five countries in the region and is conducting Belt and Road cooperation with 22 countries including Jamaica.

Chinese diplomacy has become a stabilising anchor for world peace. It will stand firm on the right side of history and on the side of human progress. It will provide certainty to this uncertain world. We are pleased that more and more countries have joined the cause of building a community with a shared future, over 100 countries support the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative, and over three-quarters of countries across the world have joined the Belt and Road family.

As Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said, China follows the principles of equality and mutual benefit and never seeks spheres of influence or targets any party in its engagement with LAC countries.

Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping and the leaders of LAC countries, and boosted by the China-CELAC Forum, China and LAC countries have delivered fruitful results in building the China-LAC community with a shared future, bringing tangible benefits and happiness to the countries and people concerned.

China will host the fourth ministerial meeting of the forum this year, and relevant countries including Jamaica are welcome to attend the grand gathering and discuss major development issues.

China and Jamaica are both members of the Global South, and our development plans for many areas coincide. I have noticed that Jamaica is stepping up efforts to create a tourism logistics hub. China is also developing its tourism sector vigorously and is steadily unlocking the potential of tourism consumption.

There are huge opportunities for cooperation in the tourism sector between China and Jamaica. Moreover, Jamaica is undergoing a digital transformation, including the development of digital payments and e-government, etc.

During the aforementioned ‘Two Sessions’, President Xi Jinping made a number of references to the key message of scientific and technological innovation. China’s new quality productive forces will accelerate its integration into the global value chain, providing more choices for the world.

We invite our Jamaican friends to pay close attention to China’s latest development concepts and practices, and to explore new opportunities for the two sides to develop together.

The process is well underway and we are firmly moving into the future.

On this journey, I would like to work with all of our Jamaican friends hand in hand and embrace the bright spring with total confidence.

Along with the Jamaican government and people, We look forward to following the historic trend of win-win cooperation and joint development, responding to the increasingly serious global challenges, and painting a better new picture of the China-Jamaica strategic partnership.