Xi calls for coordinated efforts to fight COVID-19

PRESIDENT Xi Jinping has stressed coordinated efforts to control the novel coronavirus disease and for economic and social development, while striving to achieve this year’s goals for economic and social progress.

Xi made the remarks during an inspection tour for COVID-19 control and work resumption in east China’s Zhejiang Province, which began on Sunday and ended yesterday.

While hearing work reports made by Zhejiang provincial committee of the CPC and provincial government yesterday, Xi said the epidemic situation in China is moving steadily in a positive direction, and the peak of the current COVID-19 outbreak is over in the country.

The risk posed by imported cases, however, remain as the pandemic is accelerating its spread across the world, said Xi, stressing intensified management of asymptomatic virus cases in China.

China will make preventing imported cases the top priority in its COVID-19 response at present and even for a “prolonged” period of time, he said.

Though the increasingly fast spread of COVID-19 abroad has disrupted international economic and trade activities and brought new challenges to China’s economic development, it has also provided fresh opportunities for expediting the country’s development in science and technology and advancing industrial upgrading, Xi noted.

More efforts should be made to accelerate and further expand work and production resumption in an orderly manner on the premise of strictly implementing COVID-19 control measures, he said.

Xi called for efforts to smooth global supply chains to ensure normal economic and trade activities.

While seizing the opportunities of industrial digitization and digital industrialization, China also needs to expedite the construction of “new infrastructure” projects such as 5G networks and data centers, and deploy strategic emerging sectors and industries of the future including digital economy, life health services and new materials, he said.

He called for putting in place sound systems and policies for promoting integrated urban-rural development, and speeding up the modernization of agriculture and rural areas.

Xi demanded efforts to guarantee an adequate supply of food with stable prices for urban residents and ensure sufficient income for rural people.

On Sunday, Xi visited the Chuanshan port area of the Ningbo Zhoushan Port, whose throughput has recovered to normal levels due to the timely measures it adopted to resume production.

He called for efforts to cope with and blunt the adverse impact on cargo shipping brought by restrictive measures adopted by various countries to fight coronavirus.

He later visited an industrial park that produces high-end auto parts and molds in Ningbo. “Normal production of enterprises can keep the national economy on track and create employment opportunities for the public,” Xi said.

During a visit to Yucun Village in Anji County on Monday, Xi said economic development should not be achieved at the expense of the ecological environment.

To protect the ecological environment is to develop the productive forces, Xi said. He stressed the equal importance of urban and rural modernization.

On Tuesday, at the Xixi National Wetland Park in the provincial capital of Hangzhou. Xi encouraged vendors to inherit and develop traditional handicrafts and other forms of intangible cultural heritage. Xi also visited the City Brain, a smart city platform aiming to improve urban management.

(Xinhua)