CHANGSHA — President Xi Jinping has called for efforts to blaze a new path of high-quality development.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour in Central China's Hunan province from Sept 16 to 18.

Xi called on Hunan to develop itself into a hub of advanced manufacturing industry of national importance, a hub of technological innovation with core competitiveness, and a hub of reform and opening-up in inland regions.

He also asked the province to demonstrate a renewed sense of responsibility in promoting the rise of the country's central region and the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

During the inspection tour, Xi researched coordinating COVID-19 control and economic and social development, and making plans for the economic and social development in the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).

On the afternoon of Sept 16, Xi visited a revolution-themed exhibition hall at the village of Shazhou to learn about Party building at the primary level, local tourism, and education programs promoting revolutionary traditions.

The exhibition chronicles the story of an impoverished villager named Xu Jiexiu, who offered shelter to three female Red Army soldiers during the Long March in the 1930s. Before their departure, the soldiers cut their only quilt into two pieces, leaving one part with Xu to show their care.

Xi required strengthened confidence in the socialist path, urging CPC members to deliver on the Party's commitments and promises and stand together with the people on the Long March of the new era.

Visiting the village's service center and infirmary, he stressed providing better services to the people.

Xi also learned about the progress on poverty alleviation while visiting a modern farming and tourism demonstration base, and checked the collocations of food in student meals and food safety when he toured a township primary school.

In the home of Zhu Xiaohong, grandson of Xu Jiexiu, Xi said the CPC's goal is to lead the Chinese people to liberation and a better life, and the Party must stick to its fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly.

Leaving Zhu's home, Xi told villagers and tourists who came to greet him that it is because of the support of the people that the CPC has gone through a glorious course and created great achievements.

He said the Party remains committed to serving the people, which is not only a slogan, but also an action of persistence.

The Party is striving to make people live a richer and happier life, Xi said.

While visiting Sunward, an advanced machinery manufacturer in the provincial capital city of Changsha on the afternoon of Sept 17, Xi inspected the workshop and spoke highly of the innovation spirit of the employees.

Independent innovation is the life of an enterprise, Xi stressed. "Key and core technologies must be firmly held in our hands," he added.

Xi required resolute efforts to support manufacturing and the real economy to become bigger and stronger, and pledged to continue opening-up in the new phase of development.

Xi underscored the healthy and continuous development of the cultural industry while visiting a cultural industry park in the city.

He also inspected the thousand-year-old Yuelu Academy in Hunan University. Xi stressed combining teaching and practices, making full use of rich historical and cultural resources to promote the understanding of why history and the people have chosen the CPC and socialism.

He encouraged young people to live up to the expectations of times.

On the morning of Sept 18, after hearing the Party's Hunan provincial committee and the provincial government report their work, Xi noted the emergence of new opportunities and challenges while the country remains in an important period of strategic opportunity for development.

Xi stressed the need to nurture new drivers and advantages for high-quality development, advance the modernization of industrial chains, increase effective investment, and expand consumer spending.

He also called for strengthening enterprises' abilities to innovate, breaking deep-rooted institutional barriers, and pushing for the innovative development of foreign trade.

When addressing the prioritization of the development of agriculture and rural areas, Xi stressed the need to steadily raise grain production capability, deepen agricultural supply-side structural reform, activate the internal forces driving rural vitalization, and synchronize poverty eradication with rural vitalization.

Xi called for progress in ecological civilization, and continuous improvement in the environment and rural living conditions.

Emphasizing the people-centered philosophy of development, Xi demanded solid efforts to solve problems of pressing public concern.

He said work should be done to facilitate employment among key groups, including college graduates, demobilized military personnel, rural migrant workers, and urban residents who have had difficulty finding jobs.

Problems concerning inaccessible and expensive medical resources should be addressed, and ethnic solidarity should be strengthened, Xi added.

More efforts should be made to encourage and guide Party members and officials in carrying forward the revolutionary traditions, Xi said, adding that a system under which officials "don't dare to, are unable to and have no desire to commit acts of corruption" must be advanced as a whole.