Chinese President Hu Jintao has urged local officials to fully implement the "scientific concept of development" and to protect the fundamental interests of common people and to build "a harmonious and well-off society," as he wound up his five-day visit to southwest China's Guizhou Province.
   
During the Spring Festival, China's traditional family reunion holiday, President Hu, who is also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), visited the mountainous, multinational Guizhou Province in southwest China from February 7 to February 11 and spent the holiday with local farmers, workers and fire fighters. He also visited ethnic villages, urban communities, construction sites and a telecommunications company.
   
Hu also heard the work report of the provincial government and the provincial committee of the CPC during his visit and delivered an important speech.
   
Hu said the "scientific concept of development" is important not only for economically developed areas but for economically backward areas as well.
   
He said the central government will continue to push forward the development of western areas by giving more favorable policies, intensifying capital input and adjusting industrial structure.
   
He urged local officials to strengthen and improve macro-economic control policies, speed up the readjustment of economic structure, convert the economic growth mode and stick to the "sustainable development" strategy.
   
He told local officials to stabilize and strengthen policies favorable to the development of agriculture and to intensify their efforts to promote grain production and increase farmers' incomes.
   
Poverty reduction work should also be stepped up, he said. "People and officials in poor areas should uphold a self-dependent spirit, reasonably utilize local resources and vigorously develop industries with local characteristics. At the same time, the central government will intensify funding for poverty relief, step up infrastructure construction in poor areas, improve work conditions for people in poor areas, and solve the problems of food and clothing for people in poor areas as soon as possible," he said.
   
Hu said building a socialist harmonious society is in the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the country's people and is an important strategic task for the government and the CPC. "Governments at all levels should do their best to safeguard people's legitimate rights and interests and to maintain social stability," he said.
   
President Hu celebrated the eve of the Chinese Lunar Rooster New Year by sharing tea and snacks with ethnic Miao villagers in southwestern Guizhou Province. On the eve of last year's Spring Festival, he visited a northern Chinese village, inspecting fields and cattle pens and making pork dumplings with farmers.

(Xinhua News Agency February 12, 2005)