China will continue to implement a wider and deeper opening-up on a larger scale and build a higher-level open economic system to keep injecting impetus into the global economic recovery, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said on Tuesday.

Noting that Mwangi Wachira, an economist and ex-World Bank staffer, said during an interview recently that China stands on the right side of the history of economic globalization and will bring more confidence and opportunities to global economic recovery with its broad prospects of high-standard development, Zhao said openness is the only way for development and progress.

Amid the complex domestic and international situation, Zhao said China's economy is making steady progress with its fundamentals of long-term improvement unchanged and has always been a positive energy for global prosperity and development.

China's economy grew at an average annual rate of 6.6 percent over the past decade, contributing more than 30 percent on average to world economic growth, Zhao said.

In 2021, China's GDP accounted for 18.5 percent of the world economy, and its trade in goods and services totaled $6.9 trillion, securing the world's second-largest economy and the largest trading nation, said Zhao.

The spokesperson quoted the remarks from President Xi Jinping made at the 29th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting as saying that "history has proven time and again that only openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation is the right way forward for humanity."

China has remained a firm advocate of an open global economy, Zhao said.

By advancing high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, proposing the Global Development Initiative and promoting its implementation, China expands economic ties with all countries and shares development opportunities to help implement the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, he added.

(Cover: Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian takes questions at a press briefing in Beijing, China, November 29, 2022. /Chinese Foreign Ministry)