Good morning!

We are greatly honored to invite all the Members of the Advisory Committee to meet again in Beijing for a joint discussion of a matter of vital importance about the development of Zhongguancun Science Park. Here please allow me to extend warm welcome to all the Members of the Advisory Committee on behalf of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CCP and the Beijing Municipal Government as well as in my own name and express heartfelt thanks to all the Members of the Advisory Committee for their attention and support to Zhongguancun Science Park.

To the international community, the construction of Beijing, the capital of China, represents the image of a large developing country that is open to the outside world and is keeping on reform. Our goal is to build the Chinese capital city into a first-class international metropolis. In terms of the deployment of the development space, we have a graphic description called ¡°one line and two wings¡±. The one line refers to the capital city¡¯s central line from south to north including the Tian¡¯anmen Tower, the Forbidden City and the Asian Games Village as well as the Olympic Games Village and the Olympic Green that are under construction. The two wings refer to the CBD in Chaoyang District east of the central line and Zhongguancun west of the central line. Viewed from the cultural angle, the central line gives a concentrated expression of the fine Chinese cultural tradition and the outcome of China¡¯s active merger with the global culture, the CBD in the eastern part represents the profound commercial culture brought along by the growing market orientation and Zhongguancun in the western part represents the abundant high tech innovative culture China has firmly grasped the historical chance of the new economy.

The pattern of economic, social and cultural development with the ¡°one line and two wings¡± as the basic framework will lead Beijing to a first-class internationalized metropolis step by step. So far it appears that the development is pretty smooth. In 2000 that has just passed, Beijing scored major achievements. The rate of economic growth reached 11%, higher than the national average. There was an all-round upturn in the three chief demands of consumption, investment and export. The new and high-tech industry represented by Zhongguancun Science Park developed rapidly, and its contribution to the industrial growth of the city reached over 60%. The local financial revenue increased by 20%. The people¡¯s living standard improved continuously. In February this year, we smoothly passed the evaluation inspection to Beijing made by the International Olympic Committee Evaluation Commission, and the 21^st World University Students Games will soon open solemnly in Beijing. On the whole, the situation of the development is good, and we have made a great stride towards our expected objective.

The First Session of the Advisory Committee held last year was a great success. Many valuable suggestions put forward by the Members of the Advisory Committee, involving various aspects such as the creation of the environment for the development of the Park Area, the government behaviors and the attraction of talented personnel, contributed to the construction of Zhongguancun, the western wing of Beijing. We earnestly studied the suggestions and implemented them in our actual work. It should be said that in the past year, mush progress has been made in the above-mentioned aspects of our work. Apart from the pronounced improvement of the municipal infrastructure of Zhongguancun area, the commencement of the construction of several key industrial bases and the appearance of a new startup upsurge, one prominent manifestation was the adoption of the ¡°basic law¡± of the Zhongguancun Park