Xi stresses steadily promoting economic growth

Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged efforts to steadily promote economic growth and continue improving people's lives. During a two-day inspection tour to Tianjin that ended Wednesday, Xi learned about the development of agriculture, high-tech industries, ecological urban planning and employment in the city. While visiting the Binhai New Area, Xi said the area should play a leading role in the city's economic development and Tianjin should restructure industries and transform the economic growth pattern. Xi also urged the city to promote the intensive and clustered development of industries, as well as rapidly develop the service industry. He also visited the Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biotechnology & Medicine, located in Binhai New Area, where he recognized the work of the many returned overseas students-turned staff there. Xi further stressed capacity building for indigenous innovation as well as innovation based on introducing and learning from existing scientific and technological developments. The Binhai New Area, established in 1994 as a growth engine for the area surrounding the Bohai Bay in north China, has generated an economic output representing over half of Tianjin's total. Meanwhile, Xi also visited the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city, a cooperation project between China and Singapore. He expressed the hope that the eco-city will provide a good example for resource-saving and environmentally-friendly societies. Also during his trip, Xi asked Tianjin to improve its agricultural self-reliance. While visiting a vocational training center in Tianjin, Xi encouraged college students to be ambitious as well as down-to-earth in their job hunts. He asked college students not to shy away from working at the grassroots level and in tough places and urged them to issue extraordinary performances in ordinary job situations. Additionally, Xi stressed finding employment for the youth, especially college graduates, and poor urbanites, veterans and migrant workers. He also urged authorities to make efforts to provide sound vocational training and improve the employment service system in an effort to ease structural unemployment. Xi also required relevant authorities to assist college graduates who start their own businesses as well as those who have difficulty finding jobs. China will see a record-high 6.99 million people graduate from college this year, up 2.8 percent year on year, according to official figures. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said at a recent meeting that China faces a tough employment situation due to tempered economic growth in the past few months of this year.