Chinese President Inspects Provinces in NE

Jiang Zemin Inspects Northeast China

Chinese President Jiang Zemin called on the nation to grasp opportunities to meet the challenges brought by the world development trend and step up economic development to ensure all-round achievements in China's modernization drive.

Jiang made the remarks during an inspection tour of Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces in northeast China, which started August 22 and concluded Monday.

During the week-long tour, Jiang Zemin visited cities, factories, fields, high-tech companies, Sanjiang Plain, the Daqing Oilfield in Heilongjiang and the No.1 Automobile Factory in Jilin.

He also listened to work reports by provincial leaders on local social and economic development, urging them to work hard and strengthen party building and construction of the legal system.

Jiang urged people in Heilongjiang and Jilin to implement all tasks set by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), work hard, make innovative progress, promote economic growth, accelerate reforms of traditional industrial bases and make new achievements.

During a meeting with state farm workers in Heilongjiang, Jiang said the great changes at the Great Northern Wilderness (in northeast China) was led by the three generations of farm workers. "You have made a big step forward in promoting agricultural mechanization and narrowing the gap between urban districts and rural areas. Construction of small towns has taken shape." Jiang called on participants to work hard to achieve their objective of farm mechanization around 2005.

While visiting the Daqing Oilfield and the First Automobile Works, Jiang said, industrial regrouping and structural upgrading should be guided by market needs. He urged people in the industrial sector to speed up transformation of traditional industry with new and high technology, turn out marketable and technology-intensive products and build new aspects of industrial growth.

Backbone enterprises will be formed in key sectors of the national economy. Through enterprise merger and regrouping, the country is to build a number of enterprise groups which are free to handle their own intellectual property rights and perform well, he said.

The president was accompanied by Vice Premier Wen Jiabao, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and member of the secretariat; Zeng Qinghong, alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and member of the secretariat, as well as head of Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee; and Heilongjiang and Jilin provincial government officials.