Xi hails areas' contribution to economic recovery, emphasizes focus on ecology President Xi Jinping has underlined the importance of developing the
Yangtze River Economic Belt to promote the country's high-quality
socioeconomic development as proposed in a blueprint adopted by a key
Party meeting last month. Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China
Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made
the remark at a symposium in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, on
Saturday. The seminar was held after he concluded a two-day inspection tour
which brought him to Nantong and Yangzhou, cities along the Yangtze
River. Xi visited places including the waterfront along the Yangtze
River and the Grand Canal, a key water control project and cultural
heritage site. It was Xi's first domestic inspection tour after the Fifth Plenary
Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, which set China's major
social and economic development targets for the 14th Five-Year Plan
period (2021-25). Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and flooding disasters
this year, the Yangtze River Economic Belt has made a prominent
contribution as China takes the lead in economic recovery among major
world economies, Xi said. He urged the region to become a major force promoting the country's
green development that gives priority to ecology, promotes the
establishment of a new development paradigm and advances high-quality
development. The new "dual-circulation" development paradigm takes the
domestic market as the mainstay while the domestic and international
markets boost each other. The Yangtze River Economic Belt covers the 11 provincial-level
regions of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing,
Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Shanghai. It accounts for nearly half of
the country's population and total economic output. Xi urged efforts to build the region into a demonstration area that
advances green development and promotes harmonious coexistence between
people and nature, a key element in formulating China's 14th Five-Year
Plan (2021-25) and future targets for 2035. The restoration of the
Yangtze River's ecological environment should be put as a top priority,
he said. He also called on the region to define its own position in the
country's overall development and explore effective ways to stimulate
the domestic market. Efforts should be made to combine demand with
supply and push forward coordinated development in the upper, middle and
lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Xi said. To build the Yangtze River Economic Belt into a new platform of
high-level opening-up, Xi said efforts should be made to foster more
opening-up platforms in inland areas. According to Xi, provinces and cities along the Yangtze River should
find their own positions in the new development paradigm and proactively
open their markets to the world. He urged efforts to promote the
integration of the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt with
the joint building of the Belt and Road by expanding investment and
trade as well as promoting people-to-people exchanges. He also stressed efforts to protect the cultural relics and heritage
of the river, deepen study of the Yangtze River culture and promote its
creative transformation and development.
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