Xi Held Symposium on Private Enterprises- Transcript and Major Takeaways

How attendtents list tell the story?

Today, Chinese President Xi Jinping held a symposium with heads of private enterprises. According to the video published by Yangshi Shizheng(央视时政), attendants of the first row, including:

• Qi Xiangdong (齐向东)- Chairman and founder of QAX Technology, the leading company in cyber security industry

• Lei Jun (雷军) - Founder and CEO of Xiaomi Technology, one of China's leading smartphone and smart device manufacturers

• Yu Renrong (虞仁荣) - Founder and Chairman of Will Semiconductor Co., Ltd., a key player in semiconductor industry

• Wang Chuanfu (王传福) - Founder and Chairman of BYD Company, a major electric vehicle and battery manufacturer

• Ren Zhengfei (任正非) - Founder of Huawei Technologies, global telecommunications equipment company

• Liu Yonghao (刘永好) - Founder of New Hope Group, one of China's largest agribusiness operators

• Wang Xingxing (王兴兴) - Founder of Unitree Robotics (Their Robot were on Spring Festival Gala stage)

• Nan Cunhui (南存辉) - Chairman of CHINT Group, major electrical equipment manufacturer

• Leng Youbin (冷友斌) - Founder and Chairman of Feihe International (飞鹤乳业), one of China's largest dairy companies.

• Pony Ma (马化腾) - Founder and CEO of Tencent, tech giant behind WeChat

• Jack Ma (马云) - Co-founder of Alibaba Group, though he has stepped back from direct management

• Zeng Yuqun (曾毓群) - Founder and Chairman of CATL, world's largest electric vehicle battery manufacturer

Notably, Liang Wenfeng, founder of quantitative trading firm High-Flyer and artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, was among the attendees. Meanwhile, Robin Li, founder of Baidu as well as Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance (TikTok's parent company), were not present at the symposium.

The only comparable precedent to this meeting was the private enterprise symposium held in 2018, approximately seven years ago. My personal observation is the shift in participant composition toward more consumer-facing (ToC) companies. In 2018, there were more mid-stream industrial chain companies like Wanxiang, Tongwei, and Xingjian Special Glass. However, this time, the focus shifted to consumer-facing companies like Xiaomi (consumer electronics), Feihe (dairy), and BYD (automobiles). This reflects some sort of change for decision-makers in viewing the importance of enterprises.

Another thing worth noticing is that firms attending this symposium specializing in hard-core technology, like AI(DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Will Semiconductor) and robotics(Unitree Robotics, Xiaomi, Huawei). This alliance with the state’s emphasis on technological innovation and its focus on AI development as a critical emerging sector.

After the photo was published, various WeChat groups began enthusiastically trying to identify which entrepreneurs belonged to each of those backs of heads.

Below is the translation of the official transcript:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/BVZCpFKKIPFbpP11L6JmkA

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Xi Jinping: The private economy has broad prospects and great potential for development. This is the right time for private enterprises and entrepreneurs to demonstrate their capabilities and make significant contributions

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 17 - Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, President of China, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended and delivered an important speech at a symposium with private enterprises in Beijing on the morning of February 17. He emphasized that the Party and state's fundamental guidelines and policies for private economic development have been incorporated into the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and will be consistently upheld and implemented - this cannot and will not change. In the new era and new journey, the private economy has broad prospects and great potential for development, and this is the right time for private enterprises and entrepreneurs to demonstrate their capabilities. It is necessary to unify thinking and strengthen confidence to promote the healthy and high-quality development of the private economy. He expressed hope that private enterprises and entrepreneurs will embrace the spirit of serving the country, focus on development, operate legally and efficiently, and promote common prosperity while achieving success and making new and greater contributions to advancing Chinese-style modernization.

Li Qiang, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Premier of the State Council, and Ding Xuexiang, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, attended the symposium. Wang Huning, Member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, chaired the symposium.

At the symposium, six private enterprise leaders delivered speeches and offered opinions and suggestions on promoting private economic development under new circumstances. These speakers included Ren Zhengfei (CEO of Huawei Technologies), Wang Chuanfu (Chairman of BYD), Liu Yonghao (Chairman of New Hope Group), Yu Renrong (Chairman of Shanghai Will Semiconductor), Wang Xingxing (CEO of Unitree Robotics), and Lei Jun (Chairman of Xiaomi Technology).

After listening to their speeches, Xi Jinping delivered an important address. He noted that private enterprises have flourished alongside the great journey of reform and opening up. Over the decades, the Party's theoretical understanding and practical approach regarding the position and role of the private economy in reform, opening up, and socialist modernization has been consistent while evolving with the times. The Party and state remain unwavering in strengthening and developing the public sector while equally unwavering in encouraging, supporting, and guiding the development of the non-public sector. The Party and state ensure that all types of ownership economies have equal legal access to production factors, fair market competition participation, and equal legal protection. This promotes the complementary advantages and joint development of various ownership economies while fostering the healthy development of both the non-public economy and private entrepreneurs.

Xi Jinping pointed out that China's private economy has now reached a considerable scale and holds significant weight, with a solid foundation for promoting high-quality development. In the new era and journey, China's social productivity will continue to advance, people's living standards will steadily improve, and reform and opening up will further deepen comprehensively. Particularly noteworthy are the rapid development of education and technology, the large and high-quality talent pool and workforce, well-established industrial and infrastructure systems, and the enormous market potential of over 1.4 billion people - all of which bring new opportunities and provide greater development space for the private economy. The socialist system with Chinese characteristics has multiple notable advantages, and the continuous improvement of both the socialist market economic system and the socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics will provide stronger guarantees for private economic development.

Xi emphasized that the current difficulties and challenges facing the private economy are generally emerging during the process of reform, development, and industrial transformation and upgrading. These challenges are partial rather than comprehensive, temporary rather than long-term, and surmountable rather than insurmountable. It is necessary to align thoughts and actions with the Central Committee's judgment of domestic and international situations and its economic work decisions and arrangements, to see prospects, light, and future amid difficulties and challenges, maintain development momentum, strengthen development confidence, and maintain the spirit of striving for success.

Xi pointed out that the current priority is to implement policies and measures promoting private economic development solidly. Whatever the Central Committee has decided must be resolutely executed without discount. It is necessary to resolutely eliminate various barriers to the equal use of production factors and fair market competition according to law, continuously promote fair access to competitive infrastructure fields for various business entities, and continue to make great efforts to solve financing difficulties and high costs for private enterprises. Efforts should be made to resolve the issue of delayed payments to private enterprises. Law enforcement supervision should be strengthened, focusing on rectifying arbitrary fees, fines, inspections, and seizures, effectively protecting the legal rights and interests of private enterprises and entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, it must be recognized that China is a socialist country under the rule of law, and illegal activities by enterprises of all ownership types cannot evade investigation and punishment. Various relief policies should be seriously implemented with improved precision and comprehensive measures, treating all enterprises equally. The relationship between government and business should be further developed in a clean and cordial manner. Party committees and governments at all levels should take practical measures to coordinate the implementation of policies promoting private economic development.

Xi Jinping emphasized that enterprises are the main business entities, and their internal development momentum is of primary importance. Private enterprises and entrepreneurs should be full of entrepreneurial spirit and patriotic passion, continuously elevate their ideals, deepen their love for the country, remember their roots while pursuing wealth, and advance while being prosperous. They should carry forward the entrepreneurial spirit, focus on strengthening and improving their enterprises, and firmly serve as builders of socialism with Chinese characteristics and promoters of Chinese-style modernization.

They must unwaveringly pursue high-quality development, stay focused on their main business, strengthen the industry, enhance independent innovation, transform development methods, and continuously improve enterprise quality, efficiency, and core competitiveness. They should strive to contribute to technological innovation, cultivate new productive forces, build a modern industrial system, comprehensively promote rural revitalization, promote coordinated regional development, and ensure and improve people's livelihoods.

Enterprises should improve their governance structure according to modern enterprise system requirements with Chinese characteristics, standardize shareholder behavior, strengthen internal supervision, and improve risk prevention mechanisms. They should continuously improve the use, management, and protection mechanisms for production factors, including labor, talent, knowledge, technology, capital, and data, while focusing on cultivating enterprise successors. They should maintain honest and law-abiding operations, establish correct values and moral perspectives, and promote healthy private economic development through practical actions. They should actively fulfill social responsibilities, build harmonious labor relations, protect the ecological environment, participate in public welfare and charity work within their capabilities, and contribute more to society.

Wang Huning, while chairing the meeting, stated that General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech fully affirmed the major achievements of private economic development and its important contributions to national economic and social development. The speech emphasized the correct understanding of opportunities and challenges facing private economic development and made comprehensive arrangements for promoting healthy and high-quality development of the private economy in the current and coming period. The speech was far-sighted, profound in thought, incisive in discussion, and rich in content, which we must carefully study and resolutely implement. We must strengthen development confidence, enhance awareness of the overall situation, systemic concepts, and the spirit of the rule of law, fully implement various policies, and strive to create new prospects for private economic development.

Shi Taifeng, Li Shulei, He Lifeng, Wu Zhenglong, and Mu Hong attended the symposium.

Responsible officials from relevant departments of central and state organs, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and representatives of private enterprises attended the symposium.