China celebrates the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up: New beginning and new journey

BEIJING, Dec. 20, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report by China.org.cn on the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening up:

A fate-changing meeting for China was underway today 40 years ago. That was the third plenary session of the 11(th) central committee of the Communist Party of China.

The conference liberated people's thinking, and broke the old institutional restrictions and the constraints imposed by old concepts, paving way for the nation to embrace reform and opening up.

From then on, the power of reform, gushing out like flood, blazed a trail that has led to China becoming a strong and prosperous country.

Over the past 40 years, China on countless occasions has used the expression "the first" to mark the progress of reform and opening up, which serve as footnotes of the splendid process of advancement.

In 1978, farmers of 18 families in Xiaogang village, Anhui province, left their red fingerprints on an agreement that allocated previous collectively-owned land to each household, marking the beginning of China's rural reform.

In 1980, Zhang Huamei, a 19-year-old girl from Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, obtained her private business license, becoming the first person to gain this right after the reform and opening up policy was launched.

In 1987, after Kentucky Fried Chicken opened its first outlet on the Chinese mainland in Qianmen, Beijing, Chinese citizens were able to taste foreign fast food for the first time at home.

In 1990, the Shanghai Stock Exchange opened, marking the initiation of China's capital market.

In 1994, China saw its first 64k (kilobit) international dedicated line connected to the Internet.

In 2001, China entered the World Trade Organization. This quickened the pace of the country's integration into the international community, advancing its economic growth onto the fast track of globalization.

In 2007, China raised the speed of its rail transport for the sixth time. The CRH bullet train, the first China-developed high-speed train, went into service, ushering in an era of high-speed rail travel.

From 1978 to 2018, China's Gross Domestic Product increased by 224 times, enabling it to become the world's second-largest economy, with its share in the global economy rising from 1.8 percent to 15 percent with a total size of $11.6 trillion.

These great changes all stem from that conference 40 years ago. Yet, the achievements that China has made over the past 40 years cannot be attributed to any one-off action: rather, they have come from the Chinese people's hard work.

And China's reform and opening up is not a once-and-for-all change, but a development path that will never end.

In celebrating the 40(th) anniversary of reform and opening up, China is looking forward to continuing along a new section of an historic journey.

China Mosaic
http://www.china.org.cn/video/node_7230027.htm

China celebrates the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up: New beginning and new journey
http://www.china.org.cn/video/2018-12/20/content_74295418.htm

About China.org.cn

Founded in 2000, China Internet Information Center (China.org.cn/China.com.cn) is a key state news website under the auspices of the State Council Information Office, and is managed by China International Publishing Group. We provide round-the-clock news service in ten languages. With users from more than 200 countries and regions, we have become China's leading multi-lingual news outlet introducing the country to the outside world.

We are one of the country's authoritative outlets for government press releases and are authorized to cover various major events. "Live Webcast" is our online webcasting service to present State Council Information Office press conferences in both Chinese and English languages. We are reputed for timely and accurate delivery of news and information, and wide interactions with audiences. In addition, we are authorized to publish and live broadcast major events and press conferences of ministries, local government agencies and institutions as well as enterprises.

In the era of mobile internet, we endeavor to create an array of products for mobile devices headed by the multilingual WAP platform and the mobile APP. We also use Chinese and international social media to publish information for different user groups.

In the future, CIIC will continue to offer authoritative information about China, tell China's stories, voice China's opinions, and introduce a vivid, panoramic and multicultural China to the world through multi-language, multi-media and multi-platforms.

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/china-celebrates-the-40th-anniversary-of-reform-and-opening-up-new-beginning-and-new-journey-300769313.html

SOURCE China.org.cn