Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan has called for an acceleration of China's western development strategy to boost economic growth in the country's underdeveloped western regions.

Zeng was speaking Saturday at a workshop in Yinchuan City, capital of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, which was attended by leading officials from Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai provinces, and Xinjiang Uygur, Ningxia Hui and Inner Mongolia autonomous regions, as well as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps.

Zeng pointed out that China had started well in its implementation of the western development strategy over the past three years, which saw the launch of a series of major development projects and environmental protection programs.

An effective mechanism to protect the environment was needed while developing local economies, ensuring the performance of local development projects and realizing a coordinated economic and social development in both cities and rural areas. It also needed to optimize the structure of industries, improve investment environments, and establish a long-term, stable channel of financing for the western region, he noted.

During his stay in Ningxia, Zeng, who is also member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, visited villages to see the lives and production of farmers and herding families, and to study the progress of programs to return farmland to forest or grassland. 

(Xinjiang News Agency July 28, 2003)