Xi highlights upgrading in Heilongjiang

President Xi Jinping has urged Heilongjiang province in Northeast China to act as a good stabilizer in safeguarding the country's food security, saying that the province should promote its agricultural modernization and place greater emphasis on developing agriculture-related science and technology.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks on Friday as he concluded a three-day inspection tour in the province.

As China's breadbasket with rich black soil, Heilongjiang has remained China's top grain producer for 13 consecutive years with 77.63 billion kilograms of grain output last year, accounting for 11.3 percent of the national total.

While Heilongjiang should accelerate the construction of modern agricultural bases, enterprises and industries, Xi said the province should also strive to take the lead in achieving modernization in agricultural equipment, technology, management, agricultural informatization and sustainable resource utilization.

It is a priority for the province to develop its black soil into high-standard farmland and effectively protect it, he said.

Xi also stressed efforts in the province to advance the modern seed industry, promote the widespread application of advanced and appropriate technologies as well as high-end agricultural machinery, and improve the overall efficiency of grain production.

In early August, heavy rains triggered by Typhoon Doksuri, the fifth typhoon this year, caused severe damage to several grain-producing areas in Heilongjiang.

When visiting the village of Longwangmiao in Shangzhi, one of the severely affected cities, on Thursday, Xi walked into the fields to check the impact of the floods on the rice crop, inspected work on the restoration of damaged houses and infrastructure, and learned about the villagers' losses.

Last month, Shangzhi suffered its heaviest rainfall since 1957, with nearly 28,000 hectares of grain crops affected by the floods. In Longwangmiao, about 58.8 percent of the village's total farmland was damaged by the torrential rain.

Xi called on local Party and government officials to take actions to meet people's needs related to their daily life and production, speed up restoring the damaged homes, minimize agricultural losses caused by the floods and secure the safety of affected villagers.

"In China, when the Chinese people encounter difficulties, it is important to leverage the superiority of our socialist system, which means that when one is in trouble, there will be full support from the country," he said.

Since China entered its major flooding season in late July, the CPC leadership has paid close attention to work on flood prevention and relief as well as post-disaster restoration and reconstruction.

A meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee presided over by Xi in August, stressed efforts to ensure that people who are relocated can either return home or move to new homes before the winter comes, and spend a safe and warm winter.

The inspection tour also took Xi to a forest farm in the Daxinganling region, a homestay and Harbin Engineering University, where Xi extended festive greetings to teachers across the nation ahead of Teachers' Day which falls on Sunday.

At a meeting on Friday in Harbin, Xi called on Heilongjiang to firmly grasp its strategic position in the country's overall development and strive to open new ground in its high-quality development.

While the province should leverage science and technological innovations to reinvigorate its industries, it should also promote the high-quality development of advanced manufacturing with solid efforts and accelerate the upgrading of traditional manufacturing, he said.

He called for Heilongjiang to better integrate itself into the unified national market and play a greater role in connecting both the domestic and international markets.

Xi also noted the importance for the province to vigorously develop its tourism with distinctive cultural features by developing whole-industry chain development that involves ice and snow sports, equipment and tourism.

Efforts should be made to protect forests, rivers, lakes and wetlands, and improve the infrastructure in border areas in order to develop border tourism and bring prosperity to local people, he said.