Full text of Li Keqiang's speech at opening ceremony of Boao Forum

Third, we will create impetus by improving people's livelihood. The purpose of development is to improve people's lives. The 1.3 billion Chinese represent the largest consumer market and source of demand in the world. And as people's lives improve, the domestic demand will play a greater role in driving economic growth. We need to increase people's income as the economy grows. And employment is the source of income and crucial for people's lives. We will implement a more energetic policy for employment and entrepreneurship and give greater fiscal, tax and financial support and services to university graduates and unemployed people when they seek jobs or start their own businesses. We have substantially raised the limit of annual taxable income of small and micro companies eligible for halved corporate income tax from 60,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan. We will also introduce more tax breaks to encourage individually-owned businesses and enterprises to hire more. We want to steadily raise people's incomes by creating more jobs and start-ups. We will improve the social safety net and public services so that people will have no worries. We will take a comprehensive set of policies to boost consumer spending, raise people's spending power, increase consumption of goods and services and reduce distribution costs so that consumption can provide greater support for economic development.

Having registered rapid growth over the past three decades and more, the Chinese economy has entered a new stage of improving quality and performance. We need to overcome stumbling blocks on the way forward and make steady progress towards achieving our long-term goals. We will pool the courage, vision and strength of over one billion people to write a new chapter in the "China story" and endeavor to realize the great Chinese dream of national renewal.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We live in an era of interdependence. Never has the world been so closely connected as it is today; and never has Asia needed win-win cooperation so much as it does today. Success can only be achieved when the wisdom of all is pooled. We the Asian countries should work closely to uphold regional peace and stability, promote development in our region, build a common homeland for us and contribute more to world peace, development and cooperation. China will forge ahead and share weal and woe with other Asian countries in a joint effort to open up new vistas for Asia's development.

In conclusion, I wish the forum full success and all the guests coming from afar and friends attending the conference a fruitful and enjoyable stay here and good health.

Thank you!