Xi sets priorities for advancing high-quality growth in China's central region
How strategically significant is the central region to China's development? The answers are in Chinese leader Xi Jinping's recent speech.
The central region, consisting of six provinces including Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei and Hunan, has around one fourth of China's population and generates over 21 percent of the country's total economic output in recent years.
It plays a pivotal role in promoting China's overall development, serving as the country's important base for grain production, energy and raw materials, modern equipment manufacturing and high-tech industries as well as comprehensive transportation hub.
High-quality growth of this region has been high on Xi's agenda for coordinated regional development.
On an inspection tour to Jiangxi Province in 2019, he stressed work in eight fields, such as advancing high-quality development of the manufacturing sector, improving capabilities of innovation, optimizing business environment, expanding high-level opening up, and promoting green development. During the inspection tour to Hunan from March 18 to 21 this year, he urged more efforts, including the following perspectives.
CULTIVATING, ADVANCING NEW QUALITY PRODUCTIVE FORCES
During the symposium held in Changsha, Hunan Province, Xi stressed the leading role of scientific and technological innovation in bolstering industrial innovation and urged efforts to actively cultivate and develop new quality productive forces.
This has set a tone for production in the region to further achieve high-quality development.
Through years of growth, the region has accelerated the gathering of innovation factors and logged faster development of a modern industrial system. The number of its national strategic emerging industry clusters and national advanced manufacturing clusters accounted for 27.3 percent and 17.8 percent respectively of the country's total.
It also has rich educational and scientific research resources, obvious talent advantages, and good conditions for industry-university-research collaborative innovation.
To promote further growth of the region, work will be done to cultivate and strengthen emerging industries, implement forward-looking plans for future industries, while at the same time sticking to the principle of building the new before breaking the old and stimulating the new vitality of traditional industries.
COORDINATING IN-DEPTH REFORM, HIGH-LEVEL OPENING UP
Xi also stressed the need to "promote in-depth reform and high-level opening up in a coordinated manner and consistently develop the region into a more competitive inland pacesetter for opening up."
Although the region is located in the middle part of the country's inland, it has rich resources and huge market potential. Thus, it is a crucial link in building of a unified national market and facilitating the reasonable cross-regional flow and optimal allocation of various production factors.
It also plays an indispensable role in steadily expanding institutional opening-up and deeply integrate into the development of the Belt and Road Initiative.
The synergy of reform and opening up will strengthen the transformation of the region's advantages and create a strong engine for China's high-quality development.
ENSURING GRAIN, ENERGY SECURITY
Xi pointed out that efforts should be made to make high-quality development and high-level security to reinforce each other, and enhance the capabilities of ensuring food and energy security.
Grain output in the central region remained stable at around 200 billion kg, accounting for about 30 percent of the country's total. In 2023, raw coal production in the region accounted for about one-third of the country's total.
At the symposium, Xi put forward specific requirements on ensuring a stable and secure supply of grain and other important agricultural products, upgrading the level of exploring and utilizing resources such as coal and rare earth, focusing on the mutual complementation and full integration of traditional energy and new energy. He also made important arrangements for the central region to better hold the bottom line of security in the overall development of the country.
Green development is the essence of high-quality development. The six provinces in the central region are located along the Yellow River and the Yangtze River respectively, shouldering great responsibility for ecological protection.
Xi called for efforts to coordinate ecological environmental protection and green and low-carbon development, and accelerate the building of a beautiful central region.
Efforts should be made to persevere in ecological environmental protection, and to further tap the great development potential contained in the green and low-carbon transformation, in order to push the high-quality development of the central region to a higher level.
STRENGTHENING INTER-REGIONAL, INTRA-REGIONAL INTEGRATION
The campaign to energize the central region should be better linked with the nation's other major development strategies, Xi said at the symposium.
The central region is connected to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to the north, the Yangtze River Delta to the east, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to the south.
Through deep integration and interaction with other major development strategies, it can not only better attract industrial innovation resources from developed areas, but also enhance the radiation drive to underdeveloped areas, so as to facilitate phased trans-regional relocation of industries in an orderly manner and better support the country's new development paradigm.
At the same time, the six provinces in the central region have great potential for internal cooperation. Releasing potential in the integrated development of urban and rural areas and promoting intra-regional cooperation will enhance the overall strength and competitiveness of the region.
Compiled by PZ_four