BEIJING, April 24,
2024 /CNW/ -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has
reemphasized the need to boost the high-quality development of
China's western region during his
inspection in Chongqing Municipality on Monday and Tuesday. He said
the western region is of great importance for the whole country's
modernization.
This is the latest move by the Chinese president to promote the
country's regional development. Xi, also general secretary of the
CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military
Commission, just finished his inspection of central China's Hunan
Province last month. In Hunan, he stressed vigorously energizing the
central region and promoting the development of the Yangtze River
Economic Belt, aiming to bolster a more balanced regional
development.
China's western area consists
of 12 provincial-level regions, covering over 70 percent of the
country's land area and containing 27 percent of China's population. The western region is
well-known for its abundant renewable energy sources such as solar
and wind energy, and various underground mineral resources such as
rare earth, bauxite, coal and natural gas, which accounts for more
than 70 percent of the country's total reserves.
In March 2019, in a meeting of the
CPC central committee for deepening overall reform chaired by Xi, a
guideline for advancing the development of the western region in
the new era was passed. The guideline puts forward that by 2035,
the western region will catch up with the eastern region in the
fields of public service, infrastructure connectivity and people's
livelihood. China's eastern region
recorded nearly triple the GDP of the western region in 2023.
Five years on from the passing of this guideline, Xi pointed out
that, though the western region has seen significant achievements,
it still faces many development challenges. He urged the region to
focus on its competitive local industries and accelerate its
opening up.
Xi said at the symposium that the 12 provincial-level regions
should develop modern manufacturing and strategic emerging
industries such as new energy and bio-medicine based on local
conditions, and speed up industrial transformation and upgrading.
He added that tourism and other service sectors can be developed
into the region's pillar industries.
Xi made it clear that China's
economy is transforming from high-speed to high-quality
development, so every region should develop its economy based on
its specific conditions and play to its comparative advantages.
During his inspection in Chongqing, he visited an international
logistics hub, a community in Jiulongpo District, and a digital
urban operation and governance center. Local officials introduced
the development of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor,
urban renewal projects and city governance to him.
The trade corridor is a major channel between China's western region and countries of the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It reached 490
ports in 120 countries and regions as of January, and saw its cargo
volume rise 21 percent year-on-year in 2023, according to the
government work report of Chongqing Municipality.
Xi on Tuesday called on the region to accelerate the building of
the corridor and better integrate itself with the Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) to promote the opening up of the region. He had
previously said that the active participation of China's western region in the BRI would
greatly improve connectivity between China's eastern and western regions and
between China and the outside
world.
So far, the connectivity pattern has taken shape in the western
region. China's National Bureau of
Statistics (NBS) data shows that a total of 35,000 China-Europe
freight trains have been launched from the western region in the
past five years, accounting for 50.5 percent of the country's
total. In 2023, the total import-export volume of the western
region increased 37 percent compared to 2019.
As the western region is the birthplace of China's great rivers such as the Yangtze
River, Yellow River and Lancang River, and has many rare wild
animals, Xi also vowed to safeguard national ecological
security.
He stressed accelerating major projects for protecting and
restoring ecosystems, boosting the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest
Program to counter sandstorms and soil erosion in the northern
region, and promoting energy saving and carbon reduction in
traditional sectors, as well as the clean and efficient use of
coal.
China started to implement the
national strategy for the large-scale development of the western
region in 2000. As of 2020, the average annual GDP growth of the
region reached 10.2 percent, greatly closing the economic gap with
other regions. More than 21.3 million hectares of farmland have
been converted into forests or grassland, with the forest coverage
rate surpassing 19 percent, data from the National Development and
Reform Commission shows.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-04-24/5-years-on-Xi-reasserts-China-s-western-region-development-strategy-1t3CJMNHteM/p.html
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SOURCE CGTN