Xi: Accelerate upgrading of industries

Workers check machinery for export at a manufacturer in Linyi, Shandong province, on April 26, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

President Xi Jinping on Friday stressed efforts to accelerate modernizing the industrial system with the real economy as the pillar and to support Chinese modernization with high-quality population growth.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks while presiding over the first meeting of the commission for financial and economic affairs under the 20th CPC Central Committee. He is also head of the commission.

Premier Li Qiang, who is deputy director of the commission, also attended the meeting.

A modern industrial system serves as the material and technological foundation of a modern country, Xi said, urging prioritizing the real economy in economic development in order to provide solid material support for building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects.

Meeting participants said that the construction of a modern industrial system supported by the real economy concerns whether China can take the strategic initiative in terms of future development and global competition.

They stressed efforts to grasp the surging tide of new scientific revolutions, including artificial intelligence, and adapt to the requirements for harmonious coexistence between mankind and nature.

It is important to reinforce the country's strength in having a complete industrial system with strong supporting capacity, efficiently gather global innovative elements, promote the development of smarter, greener and more integrated industries and build a complete modern industrial system that is advanced and secure, according to the meeting.

A shift of focus from the real economy to the virtual economy must be avoided, the meeting noted, stressing efforts to transform and upgrade traditional industries to secure the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries.

The meeting's participants underlined the importance of enhancing top-level design in areas with strategic significance to safeguard industrial security and called for more support for making breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields.

They also urged efforts to better leverage the strengths of China's enormous market, promote openness and cooperation in industrial and supply chains, build world-class enterprises and cherish outstanding entrepreneurs.

Currently, China faces a low fertility rate, an increasing aging population and uneven population growth among regions. The meeting stressed the need to speed up the development of abundant modern human resources with good quality and optimized structure that are distributed in a rational way.

To facilitate balanced population growth in the long term, the meeting's participants said a policy system to boost birthrates must be established and improved, and the costs of pregnancy and childbirth, child rearing and schooling must be reduced significantly.

They stressed implementing a proactive national strategy in response to population aging, ensuring access to basic elderly care, bolstering the elder economy and accelerating the development of a multitiered and multi-pillar old-age insurance system.

Efforts should also be made to achieve development with the population, economy, society, resources and environment all in harmony, they added.

The meeting reviewed and approved a work regulation for the commission for financial and economic affairs and detailed regulations for the office of the commission.