Chinese top political advisor Jia Qinglin has urged southwest China's Sichuan Province to speed up environmentally friendly economic development and improve the people's livelihood during an inspection tour in the province.

In the inspection from May 5 to 8, Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), required that the province accomplish leap-forward development and maintain social harmony and stability.

When visiting high-tech companies and industrial parks, Jia said environment-friendly economic development is crucial to economic restructuring and to a well-rounded, balanced and sustainable social economic development.

He added that such an economic growth mode is a strategic move to boost China's competitiveness so that the country becomes one of the world's leading economic, scientific and technological powers.

Efforts are needed to develop modern agriculture, clean manufacturing, modern services, indigenous innovation and to promote a lifestyle that saves energy and protects the environment, said Jia, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

Jia also visited a community in Dujiangyan City to learn about the reconstruction and the distribution of apartments for earthquake victims who had lost their families and homes when Sichuan was hit by a magnitude-8.0 earthquake in May 2008. The quake left 80,000 people dead or missing.

Jia stressed that post-quake reconstruction must be of high quality, and called for efforts to speed up development of industries in quake-hit areas as well as efforts to reduce poverty.

In his visit to a rural community, Jia said governments should attach greater importance to social management and public services, put in place a social security net that covers both urban and rural residents, build government-subsidized housing, and guarantee food safety, among other things.

(Xinhua News Agency May 8, 2011)