President Xi Jinping, flanked by Shanghai Party chief Han Zheng (right) and Mayor Yang Xiong, joins a panel discussion with the Shanghai delegation to the National People's Congress, China's top legislative body, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing yesterday. - Xinhua  

President Xi Jinping urged Shanghai to continue to play its role in spearheading the country's reform and opening-up drive.

Xi made the remarks during a panel discussion with a delegation from the city during the annual session of the National People's Congress that opened in Beijing yesterday.

He encouraged officials to take bold measures in the Shanghai free trade zone, launched last year as a test bed for deepening market-oriented reforms that could be applied across the nation.

"Everything is difficult at the start," Xi told the delegation.

Though the central government had given Shanghai a three-year timetable to establish the free trade zone, the city should be quick to work out a package of systems every year that could be applied elsewhere, he said.

Xi said the city should highlight institutional innovation to make the FTZ a "plateau for institutional innovation," while keeping up with international trading rules.

China aims to liberalize interest rates, facilitate cross-border use of the yuan and allow individuals in the zone to sidestep restrictions on investing in securities abroad.

The zone has also been billed as an outpost to test greater liberalization of the service sector.

The zone is a national strategy, Xi said, as he called for greater efforts in facilitating trade and investment, as well as effective supervision and legal regulation, to achieve "concrete results."

"Stress tests should also be carried out to prevent systematic risks, especially from the financial sector," he added.

Han Zheng, Shanghai's Party chief, said the city will produce the first batch of institutions and mechanisms that could be applied nationwide by around October, the first anniversary of the zone's establishment.

Mayor Yang Xiong said: "Shanghai will make it the city's top task this year to do a good job of constructing and managing the free trade zone."

He said information technology will become a major tool for institutional innovation in the zone.

Xi also called for innovation in the city's social management and governance.

"The city should make an orderly flow of population while controlling the total number," he said.

Xi also urged the training of a group of officials to be experts in urban management and stressed that maintaining discipline should always be a top priority for city officials.