"We have seen a big improvement in China's business environment; the entrepreneurship and the technological innovation are also developing robustly," said Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, group chief executive officer of Mubadala Investment Company at the start of the New Economy Forum in Beijing on Thursday.

More than 500 international corporate executives, technological innovators, high-level politicians and experts are attending the forum which is discussing challenges from the new economic transformation and possible solutions. 

In a discussion on the proper balance between a planned economy and market economy in China and whether the private sector in China sees an optimistic future, Mubarak noted that he is seeing more businesses from China compete across the world.

"China's entrepreneurs are quite competitive and China is quite competitive," said Mubarak. In response to concerns regarding the resurgence of a state sector-dominated economy in China and about whether the proportion of the private economy will narrow, Xie Fuzhen, president of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that from the governmental policy design level, there are no preferences as China wants the state private sectors to be equals. 

"The state sector and the private sector are not competitors, and it's the Chinese government's vision and job to create an environment that different economies can develop and compete on a level playing field, and that's what the Chinese government is doing," Xie said. 

Henry Kissinger, former U.S. secretary of state, and Zeng Peiyan, chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, delivered welcome remarks, while China's vice president Wang Qishan made a keynote speech.