HEFEI — President Xi Jinping has stressed efforts to seek continuous results in the integration of the Yangtze River Delta through focusing on major work of integrated and high-quality development.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks at a symposium held in Hefei, capital city of East China's Anhui province on Aug 20.

The integration mechanism and interconnected infrastructure have played a role in epidemic prevention and control as well as economic recovery, Xi said in a speech delivered at the symposium.

In general, a new development pattern for the integration of the Yangtze River Delta is taking shape, Xi said.

WHY THE DELTA

He called for a deeper understanding of the delta's status and function in China's economic and social development, so as to better promote the region's integrated development amid grave and complex circumstances.

Xi urged the delta region to take the lead in forming a new development pattern that takes the domestic market as the mainstay and allows the domestic and foreign markets to boost each other.

Noting that the region should also rise to assume the role of the trail-blazer of China's technological and industrial innovations, Xi said Shanghai and the entire delta region should not only provide quality products but also serve as a source of high-level technologies to support China's high-quality development.

Xi underscored achieving faster progress in developing the region into a new high ground of reform and opening-up.

Efforts should be made to improve the business environment in line with world-class standards, and attract talent and enterprises from home and abroad with a development environment scoring high in openness, services, innovation and efficiency, Xi said.

He also called for efforts to promote trade and investment facilitation and strive to make the delta region an important bridge between the international and domestic markets.

INTEGRATION, HIGH-QUALITY

Xi stressed focusing on the keywords of integration and high quality to push forward integrated development of the delta. Integrated approach and measures should be taken to break administrative barriers, enhance policy coordination, and enable the smooth flow of production factors on a larger scale.

He underlined promoting high-quality economic development of the Yangtze River Delta, intensifying efforts to achieve scientific and technological breakthroughs, boosting quality development of cities in the Yangtze River Delta region, fostering the momentum of high-quality development in underdeveloped regions, and promoting high-standard reform and opening-up of Pudong.

Xi urged the provinces of Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang as well as Shanghai to prioritize key areas and major fields including integrated circuit, biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and called for efforts to foster the innovative development of micro, small and medium-sized technology companies.

He said the high-standard reform and opening-up of Pudong is of strategic significance to the development of Shanghai, the integrated and high-quality development of the Yangtze River Delta, as well as the socialist modernization in China.

Xi called for continued efforts to develop the Lingang area, a newly-launched section of the Shanghai pilot free trade zone, and boosting development of Shanghai as an international financial center to support the high-quality development of the Yangtze River Delta and the country.

Meanwhile, Xi demanded efforts to consolidate the foundation for the green development of the Yangtze River Delta, stressing that priority should be given to the protection and restoration of the Yangtze River's ecological environment, and measures must be taken to fix prominent environmental problems.

He underscored the need to enhance the access to basic public services in the region, so as to shore up weak links in people's livelihood while pursuing regional integration.

The integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta will not be achieved overnight, Xi said, calling on people to remain patient, think long term but act with a sense of urgency.

To deliver more fruitful outcomes, the plans for the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) should be drawn up in a practical way, he said.

Vice-Premier Han Zheng, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the leading group for promoting the integrated development of Yangtze River Delta, also attended the symposium.