China is set to build the Yangtze River Economic Belt into a powerful
engine of the country's high-quality development, bringing more
certainty to the development of the world economy. Efforts
should be made to promote the high-quality development of the Yangtze
River Economic Belt, said Chinese President Xi Jinping at a symposium he
chaired on comprehensively advancing the development of the Yangtze
River Economic Belt on Saturday in Nanjing, after an inspection tour in
Jiangsu Province that started on Thursday. The
tour in the economic belt was the first inspection trip by Xi, also
general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central
Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, outside
Beijing after the fifth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central
Committee, a key meeting held in October to chart the course for China's
development in the next 15 years. The actions of China's leadership
demonstrate that once China's grand development blueprint is decided,
the leadership would ensure its implementation. Symposiums
chaired by Xi with the theme of promoting the development of the
Yangtze River Economic Belt, which generates about half of the country's
GDP, had been held before, in Chongqing in 2016 and Wuhan in 2018. They
epitomize the leadership's constant attention to the "mother river" of
the Chinese nation and reflect the importance of building the economic
belt into a vigorous engine to boost the high-quality development of
China's economy. To
comprehensively develop the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China is
primed to write a new chapter in prioritizing ecological conservation
and boosting green development, create a new model for regional
coordinated development, build a new height for high-level opening-up,
and foster new advantages in innovation-led development. The
Yangtze River Economic Belt consists of nine provinces and two
municipalities and stretches across the western, middle, and eastern
regions of the country. Although
there are differences in regional development conditions, as well as
gaps in infrastructure, public services, and people's living standards
across those areas, China's top-level design mode featuring holistic
thinking helps ensure coordinated efforts in drawing a common blueprint
to address the interests of all. The
Yangtze River is China's longest waterway and the world's busiest inner
waterway in terms of cargo flow. The Yangtze River Economic Belt is
home to many of the country's free trade zones and the main convergence
zone of the Belt and Road in China, playing an important role in
coordinating the opening up of coastal, river, border and inland areas. The
high-quality development and integration of the Yangtze River Economic
Belt will help create an integrated, open and stable market in the
world's second-largest economy, offering more certainty and
opportunities to the world.
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