China's rapid development has not only brought about jobs and inexpensive goods, but also helps optimize global economic structure, said Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai in Beijing on March 21.

    At the China Development Forum 2005, Bo said in the past 20 years, as the growth rate of China is six percentage points more than the growth rate of the whole world, the fraction of China's economy in the world economy has increased from 2.4 percent in 1978 to 3.9 percent in 2003.

    The development of China's economy has expanded the fraction that developing economies accounted for in the world economy, which reached 18 percent in 2002, he said.

    "If the gap between the north and the south becomes too wide, there will be no peace," Bo said.

    By opening itself wider to other economies, China has also optimized the world industrial structure. In the past 20 years, among the 560-billion-US-dollar foreign direct investment, 70 percent is invested in manufacturing.

    With China at a low level in the international working chain, developed countries can develop their high-tech industries, Bo said.

    At present, the added value that the United States has created in the high-tech sector accounts for 25 percent of that of manufacturing. Japan, Britain and France are all between 15 to 20 percent while China's is no more than ten percent.

    Regarding the Sino-US trade surplus that the United Nations worries about, Bo said the Chinese government attaches great importance to Sino-US trade surplus and hopes it can decrease it step by step.