Your Excellency Director-General Qu Dongyu,

Distinguished Representatives,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear friends,

It’s my great pleasure to meet you all at the FAO headquarters and attend this important Seminar.

In September 2021, President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative (GDI) at the General Debate of the 76th Session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, calling for international commitment to development as a priority, a people-centered approach, benefits for all, innovation-driven development, harmony between man and nature, and results-oriented actions.

The GDI prioritizes cooperation in key areas like poverty alleviation, food security, climate change and green development, industrialization and digital economy. The Initiative is a global public good offered by China and a vivid illustration of the vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind in the development field.

Closely aligned with the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Initiative is projects-led and action-oriented, where policy dialogue, experience sharing, capacity building and practical cooperation will be promoted through specific projects in various fields, living up to the ardent expectations of the international community, especially the vast number of the developing countries.

The Group of Friends of the GDI was formed at the UN in January 2022. So far, 82 countries have joined the Group of Friends. Following Geneva and Vienna, the Group of Friends today gathers in Rome, which hosts the three UN agencies dedicated to food and agriculture, to heed the calls of the developing countries to eliminate hunger and poverty and realize common development.

The three UN Rome-based Agencies (RBAs) take it as their mission to advance the cause of global poverty reduction and agricultural development, thus making them natural partners of the GDI. China actively carries out“South-South Cooperation”on poverty reduction, and has been providing assistance to other developing countries to the best of its ability. Together with the three UN Rome-based Agencies (RBAs) and others, more than 130 projects have been implemented in nearly 60 countries, benefiting more than 30 million people.

The Group’s launch at FAO provides an important platform for the developing countries to cooperate on poverty reduction, food security and modern agriculture, which will help build more international consensus and plan more pathways for developing countries to improve food security and comprehensive agricultural production capacity.

The GDI is not a solo of China, but a symphony of all sides. We welcome all parties to participate in the Initiative by joining the Group of Friends and promote it within multilateral cooperation mechanisms such as the UN and the G20.

Meanwhile, we also stand ready to work with all parties bilaterally, including Italy, the host country of RBAs, to actively explore the potential of trilateral and multilateral cooperation. Based on specific regional strategies such as Italy’s Mattei Plan for Africa, we can work together to draw on each other’s strength and realize coordinated development.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear friends,

If the poor keep getting poorer and the rich getting richer, the world is far from being a prosperous and safe place. We should all contribute to making global development more inclusive, more universal and more resilient. This is also why the 19th G20 Leaders’ Summit, recently held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, also placed fighting hunger and poverty high on its agenda.

As President Xi Jinping pointed out, development is the eternal theme of human society, and shared development is an important path to building a better world. In realizing development, no country and no one should be left behind.

China is and will always be a member of the Global South and a reliable partner for developing countries. We stand ready to work with all parties to promote the long-term steady implementation of the GDI, so that more and more developing countries can lead a good life and achieve modernization. Let’s pool our wisdom and efforts together to keep advancing towards the vision of the 2030 Agenda and of building a global community with shared development for all!

Thank you!