The President and Chief Executive Officer for casino operator MGM Resorts International, Bill Hornbuckle, was among a group of 20 American businessmen to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week.

The 62-year-old executive joined prominent figures, including Cristiano Amon, the boss of telecommunications giant Qualcomm Incorporated, on Wednesday as part of the China Development Forum.

The summit held inside Beijing’s Great Hall of the People was also attended by Evan Greenberg from global insurance provider The Chubb Corporation, FedEx Corporation supremo Raj Subramaniam and Stephen Schwarzman of financial services behemoth Blackstone Incorporated.

Optimistic Occasion

The Financial Times reports President Xi used the gathering to express his belief that China’s economy has not yet ‘peaked’ with its future growth prospects remaining ‘bright’.

The conference, which also featured Bloomberg Incorporated leader Mark Carney, purportedly saw Beijing seek to revive foreign investor confidence in the world’s second-largest country amid potential oversupply and dumping worries.

President Xi reportedly told the business executives his country remains committed to reform and has recently ‘overcome various difficulties and challenges’. 

The 70-year-old leader further asserted that his nation’s economy ‘has not collapsed’ despite having a growth target for the year of just 5%, which is the same as 2023.

"China’s reforms will not stall and our opening up will not stop,” President Xi told the Xinhua media service. “We will continue to advance high-quality development and Chinese modernization, enable the Chinese people to live a better life and contribute more to sustainable development in the world."

Internal Interests

Hornbuckle took to the LinkedIn social media platform to praise President Xi’s 90-minute presence at the China Development Forum and to extoll the virtues of international travel in creating ‘greater mutual understanding and respect’ via the encouragement of ‘trade and economic ties’.

The meeting comes as MGM Resorts International is looking to add to the five-strong collection of hotels it operates in the nation of over 1.4 billion people via the Diaoyutai MGM Hospitality joint venture.

“MGM Resorts International has been proud of our role in supporting United States-China relations through increased bilateral travel and tourism,” Hornbuckle said.

“I was honored to be part of the meeting convened by President Xi to discuss how to use these ties to strengthen the United States-China relationship.”

 MGM Resorts International is the largest casino operator in the world by revenues from its collection of some 30 properties, including the 5,000-room MGM Grand Las Vegas, the 24-year-old MGM Grand Detroit and Maryland’s MGM National Harbor. 

Courtesy of its 56% shareholding in MGM China Holdings Limited, the Las Vegas-headquartered firm is additionally responsible for the 600-room MGM Macau and even larger MGM Cotai facilities in the former Portuguese enclave of Macau.