General secretary presides over key meeting on financial, economic affairs 

A key Party meeting on Tuesday set the tone for comprehensively bolstering infrastructure construction nationwide, highlighting the significance of implementing such a policy in upholding national security, expanding domestic consumption and promoting the country's high-quality development.

The meeting of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs was presided over by Xi Jinping, who is president of China and general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. The meeting also underlined the need to make coordinated efforts in ensuring both development and security, take into account worst-case scenarios, and strengthen the capacity for major risk forecasting and early warning.

At Tuesday's meeting, a related commission and ministries under the State Council reported on efforts to comprehensively strengthen infrastructure construction, as well as on the implementation of decisions and policies made by the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs since the 19th National Congress of the CPC in 2017.

While presiding over the meeting, Xi, who is also the director of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, said infrastructure is the mainstay of the country's social and economic development.

He called for efforts to coordinate development and security, optimize the layout, function and development mode of the country's infrastructure and build a modern infrastructure system in order to lay a solid foundation for comprehensively building China into a modern socialist country.

The meeting's participants affirmed the marked progress the country has made in the overall development of infrastructure as well as its achievements in major scientific and technological facilities, water conservancy projects, transportation hubs and information infrastructure over the past decade, according to a statement issued after the meeting.

They pointed out that the nation's existing infrastructure has yet to accommodate its development and security needs, and comprehensively boosting infrastructure construction is of great importance in fostering a dynamic domestic market and helping the domestic and international markets reinforce each other, the statement said.

While calling for the upgrading of traditional infrastructure facilities, the meeting's participants stressed the need to step up construction of "new infrastructure", including 5G networks, the industrial internet, intercity transportation and intracity rail systems, data centers, artificial intelligence, ultrahigh voltage infrastructure, and new energy vehicle charging stations.

They also called for a forward-looking approach to planning infrastructure projects that contributes to guiding industrial development and safeguarding national security.

Efforts should be made to improve transportation, energy and water conservancy infrastructure with an emphasis on strengthening them in order to improve the overall efficiency of these facilities, the meeting's participants said.

While highlighting the need to upgrade the nation's water transport network, the meeting's participants called for developing intelligent power grids, speeding up the improvement of oil and gas pipelines, and strengthening facilities that contribute to the upgrading of the information, logistics, and scientific and technological sectors.

They also underlined the need to make plans for advancing major scientific and technological infrastructure, such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and the broadband network.

Urban infrastructure should be strengthened to create an environment for people to live a higher-quality life, the meeting's participants said, adding that disaster prevention and relief facilities should be strengthened.

They called for improving public health emergency facilities, strengthening intelligent transportation infrastructure and bolstering rural infrastructure construction.

The meeting's participants also called for intensifying the construction of infrastructure facilities in the field of national security to raise the capacity for dealing with extreme situations.

While stressing the importance of improving the efficiency of implementing the decisions and policies of meetings of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, the meeting's participants also called for efforts to guide market expectations and stabilize market confidence.