CHINESE President Xi Jinping promised foreign companies greater access to China’s huge market and to invest billions in new financing for other developing economies.

The promises came as the Chinese president opened a forum today on his signature and already highly successful Belt and Road infrastructure initiative (BRI).

The BRI has been responsible for building power plants, roads, railroads and ports around the world and deepening China’s co-operation with Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

At the forum’s opening ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, President Xi promised that two Chinese development banks, the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China, will each set up 350 billion yuan (£39bn) financing windows. 

An additional 80bn yuan (£9bn) will be invested in Beijing’s Silk Road Fund to support BRI projects.

President Xi said: “We will comprehensively remove restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector.”

He said that China would also open up “cross-border trade and investment in services and expand market access for digital products” and carry out reforms of state-owned enterprises and in sectors such as the digital economy, intellectual property rights and government procurement.

This opening up of Chinese markets and the massive new investment comes as official data shows China’s economy expanded at a 4.9 per cent annual pace in July-September, beating analysts’ forecasts of about 4.5 per cent. 

This compares to the United States economy which is predicted to grow by 2.2 per cent this year and by only 0.8 per cent in the following year.

President Xi said that efforts by the US and its allies to reduce their reliance on Chinese manufacturing and supply chains amid heightened competition and diplomatic frictions and reiterated promises that Beijing would create a fairer environment for foreign firms.

He said: “We do not engage in ideological confrontation, geopolitical games nor clique political confrontation.”

President Xi said that “viewing others’ development as a threat or taking economic interdependence as a risk will not make one’s own life better or speed up one’s development.

“China can only do well when the world is doing well.”

He said: “When China does well, the world will get even better.”

Representatives from more than 130 mostly developing countries are attending the forum, including at least 20 heads of state and government. 

Addressing the forum right after Mr Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin praised BRI as being “truly important, global, future-oriented, aimed at creating more equitable, multipolar world relations.”