Lou Qinjian, an NPC deputy, secretary of the CPC Jiangsu Provincial Committee, and chairman of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress, answered questions from Chinese and foreign journalists. Lou was joined by Wu Zhenglong, deputy secretary of the provincial party committee, and governor.
153 journalists from 101 Chinese and foreign media operators including People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China Media Group, China Daily, Russia's Sputniknews, Bloomberg and Reuters attended the press conference and raised questions.
Wu Zhenglong, who presided over the meeting, expressed his heartfelt gratitude and warm welcome to the domestic and foreign media that have long cared for, paid attention to and supported Jiangsu's economic and social development.
NPC deputies Wang Jiang, Yang Zhen, Wang Qin, Cui Guiliang, Wang Tianqi, Zhou Tiegen, Li Yehong, Wang Quan, Ling Yi, Cai Lixin and Zhang Daoheng answered the journalists’ questions concerning such issues as developing education by adhering to the people-centered approach, preventing and defusing financial risks, accelerating the construction of China's new generation of intelligent information highways, comprehensively enhancing Jiangsu's position in the national innovation system and its support to the scientific and technological innovation for Jiangsu's high-quality development, developing the grain industry, strengthening the constraints of ecological environmental carrying capacity and promote rural revitalization.
The question raised by a journalist from Xinhua News Agency is that innovation is a high-frequency word in the government work report and in what way Jiangsu promotes the implementation of innovation-driven development strategy.
Lou Qinjian used a metaphor to express the importance of innovation-driven development. He said, "People may have seen the movie "Wandering Earth" recently. There is a line saying, ‘For 3.5 billion people around the world, the engine is lit up with the hope of surviving.' I want to say that this engine is innovating to light up the hope of high quality development and sustainable development.
According to Lou, Jiangsu is a province with a large number of science and education talents. Its innovative strength is relatively strong. Last year, its R&D investment was up 2.64% year on year, and the contribution rate of scientific and technological progress reached 63%. Since the 12th Five-Year Plan, 350 projects have won the National Science and Technology Progress Award. Academician Wang Zeshan and Academician Qian Qihu won the National and Top Science and Technology Awards in 2017 and 2018 respectively.
For innovation to drive high-quality development, the province has reached a high degree of consensus on its good foundation and tremendous strength. However, technological innovation is still a very urgent task so that the province can achieve high-quality economic development with its industry reaching a high-end level to participate in global competition.
He said greater efforts should be made on the basis of the major contradictions of the new era and the major needs of economic and social development to keep up with the world's scientific and technological revolution and the trend of industrial transformation, deploy the innovation chain around the industrial chain, foster the industrial chain around the innovation chain, and focus on strengthening the original innovation ability of basic research, make the key and core technologies independent and self-controllable and promote high-quality development at the forefront.
Lou Qinjian expounded Jiangsu's approaches to promoting technological innovation from four aspects. First, efforts will be made to focus on building an independent and controllable modern industrial system to intensify innovation, promote the integration and development of advanced manufacturing and modern service industries, and develop emerging industrial clusters such as high-end equipment, biomedicine, new energy vehicles, and new materials, and accelerate the development of big data, artificial intelligence, spatial information technology, 5G and other R & D applications, so as to create an industrial Internet platform, support enterprises to accelerate technological transformation and equipment renewal, strengthen quality infrastructure support and improve guidance on standards.
The second is to concentrate on improving basic research and original innovation capabilities, increase financial stability investment, integrate into the national innovation system, coordinate innovation resources within the province, expand international innovation cooperation, and strengthen intellectual property protection.
The third is to deepen the reform of the science and technology system, implement the preferential policies for science and technology, give the innovation team and leading talents greater control over property rights and decision-making power of technology routes, and fully mobilize the enthusiasm of talents for innovation and entrepreneurship.
The fourth is to implement the independent innovation demonstration zone in Southern Jiangsu, improve the level of innovation integration, and build a high-level innovation team.
A reporter from China Media Group raised a question as to how Jiangsu will make up for its weaknesses and tackle difficulties in the course of making the final spurt for building a comprehensive well-off society at a high level.
Wu Zhenglong said that the goal of building a well-off society by 2020 is the first of the CPC’s two centenary goals. It is a solemn commitment made by the party Central Committee and we must resolutely complete the tasks.
After 40 years of development since the reform and opening up, Jiangsu’s economic and social development has been at the forefront of the country, but there is still a lot of hard work to be done in building a well-off society in an all-round way, the governor said.
Jiangsu will make up for the weak points in accordance with the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping and the deployment of the Party Central Committee, win the battle against major risks, poverty alleviation and pollution control, adhere to the bottom line thinking, strengthen the sense of urgency, get prepared for any eventualities, forestall and defuse major risks, take the strategic initiative of turning crisis into opportunity to ensure sustained and healthy economic development and overall social stability, the governor said.
Wu Zhenglong analyzed the imbalance between urban and rural areas in the comprehensive construction of a well-off society in Jiangsu, the imperfectness of the comprehensive transportation system, and the shortcomings and weaknesses in the housing and public services of farmers.
We will thoroughly implement the new development concept, closely follow the targeted requirements of making the province in the forefront of the country, and continue to improve the level of building a well-off society in an all-round way by promoting "six high quality" campaigns so as to turn the grand blueprint depicted by the General Secretary Xi Jinping on the construction of a new Jiangsu into a beautiful reality.
NPC deputies Wang Tianqi, Lu Yongquan, Zhang Aijun, Xiang Xuelong and Fei Shaoyun also answered the questions raised by the reporters.
(source:ourjiangsu.com)
