Top leaders of the CPC Jiangsu Provincial Committee on Sunday studied General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech delivered at a symposium he chaired on comprehensively advancing the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
At a meeting of the standing members of the CPC Jiangsu Provincial Committee, the top leaders agreed that General Secretary Xi Jinping’s inspection tour in Jiangsu and the first overall development strategy work deployment meeting he presided over are of extremely great political, historical and practical significance, according to a statement released after the meeting.
We must gain a deep understanding of General Secretary’s requirements on the effectiveness of ecological environment improvement in the Jiangsu section of the Yangtze River, implement the new development concept, and strive to blaze a path where economic development and ecological civilization complement each other, and build a modernization in which man and nature live in harmony, the statement said.
Efforts should be made to gain a deep understanding of the practical significance of the general secretary's high evaluation of Zhang Jian, a Chinese industrialist and educator in the late 19th century and early 20th century, unswervingly support the development of the private economy, and insist on serving the country through industry and innovation, said the statement.
We must gain a deep understanding of the General Secretary’s requirements for deepening the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta, his ardent expectations for the construction of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt through continued efforts to promote the protection, inheritance and utilization of the Grand Canal culture and the General Secretary's important instructions for promoting the construction of the Eastern Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project so as to better play the important role of Jiangsu in national development and promote the balanced and sustainable development of the country’s northern and southern regions, according to the statement.
Efforts must be made to take General Secretary Xi’s requirements as the general goal, general program, and general requirements for the compiling of Jiangsu’s 14th Five-Year Plan, to advance reforms more thoroughly, to promote innovation at a higher level, and to strive to achieve more tangible high quality development results, the statement said.
More measures are needed to strengthen the protection and restoration of the ecological environment system, promote a smooth domestic circulation cycle, fuel a higher-level opening-up to the outside world, accelerate the advancement of the industrial base, modernize the industrial chain, vigorously develop high-efficiency agriculture and urban agriculture, and protect and inherit the Yangtze River culture, said the statement.
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 between 2021 and 2025.
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 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.
