Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) and Chinese president, Tuesday called on the Party and the Chinese people to meet new challenges.

At a group discussion attended by Shanghai deputies to the 9th National People's Congress (NPC), Jiang emphasized the importance of science and technology.

"Innovations in science and technology are a decisive factor for modernization," Jiang said. "We need to actively introduce mature new- and high-tech from abroad, update our traditional industries technologically and, in particular, engage in technological innovations on the basis of assimilating the latest results in science and technology that have come out abroad." He regarded technological innovation as a major change in the field of productive forces.

Jiang also called for economic structural innovations, which he regarded as a major change in the field of production relations and as another decisive factor for China's modernization.

"If we can do a good job in effecting such changes, our national economy will develop in a sustained, rapid and healthy way," he said.

Jiang urged Chinese enterprises to "go to the wider world." "We need to combine 'seeking foreign investment' with 'seeking development abroad'," he said. "This is the only way to broaden implementation of China's open policy and enable the country to play an active role in international cooperation and competition."

On the strategy of developing the west in a big way, he urged China's east and west to follow the principle of "complementing each other's advantages," meaning the promotion of common prosperity for both east and west by combining the former's advantages in technology, talent, management and information and the latter's advantages in natural resources and market potential.