Xi Stresses High-quality Economic Development

Xi Jinping said China will pursue high-quality economic development in a speech marking the start of the 20th Communist Party Congress.

"We must fully and faithfully apply the new development philosophy on all fronts, continue reforms to develop the socialist market economy, promote high-standard opening up, and accelerate efforts to foster a new pattern of development that is focused on the domestic economy and features positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows," Xi said.

He said efforts to boost domestic demand and deepen supply-side structural reform will go hand in hand.

The president and party general secretary said the world's second-largest economy has enjoyed historic growth in the past decade, with its GDP rising from 54 trillion yuan to 114 trillion yuan and its share of the global economy climbing from 11.3 percent to 18.5 percent.

Xi said China will strive towards a high-standard socialist market economy. "We will work to see that the market plays the decisive role in resource allocation and that the government better plays its role."

He also said the country will speed up efforts to achieve greater self-reliance in science and technology.

"We must regard science and technology as our primary productive force, talent as our primary resource, and innovation as our primary driver of growth," Xi said.

"We will open up new areas and new arenas in development and steadily foster new growth drivers and new strengths." (Additional reporting by Xinhua)