Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, turns 80 soon. With China planning to celebrate its 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up this year, Schwab said he was delighted about his engagement with China in the past four decades.

Schwab said President Xi Jinping's attendance at the annual meeting of the forum in Davos last year can be tagged as crucial.

"The historic speech given by President Xi last January, many participants felt, was the turning point in China's relationship with the world," Schwab said on Wednesday.

Schwab made the remark as he kicked off the plenary speech given by Liu He, member of Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Xi called for open economies, free trade, globalization and a community with a shared future for mankind.

Schwab, who started the annual meeting in 1971 at the picturesque ski resort and started to involve China in 1979, said he found that Xi has continued to spread his views and thoughts on China and the world since last year's meeting in Davos.

Schwab said the essential points of the speeches made by Xi at the Belt and Road Initiative Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, the G20 summit in Germany and APEC summit in Vietnam have links to what he said in Davos in January.

In closely watching China's economic and political development, Schwab said the essence of Xi's thoughts in Switzerland last year was also reflected in his report delivered at the 19th National Congress of Communist Party of China in October.

Those thoughts were followed in his report at the 19th congress by those "in which he outlined the great vision of China's new era," Schwab said.