SHANGHAI — Vice-Premier Han Zheng has urged efforts to push forward Yangtze River Delta integration, focusing on integrated and high-quality development.

While promoting regional integration of the Yangtze River Delta, efforts should be taken to break new ground in opening-up, said Han, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, at a meeting on June 3 in Shanghai.

Han stressed institutional innovation to promote high-level opening-up and reform, sharpening the region’s competitive edge in international cooperation.

He underlined efforts to accelerate new area building of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, optimize institutions and mechanisms to stimulate innovation among market entities, make breakthroughs in some key and core technologies, and enhance the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.

Han also called for building an integrated transport system and prioritizing environmental protection and green development.

China has made the regional integration of the Yangtze River Delta a national strategy. The area covers Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui.

The delta region takes up only one twenty-sixth of China’s territory and one-sixth of its population but creates almost one-fourth of the country’s gross domestic product.