Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday made further arrangements for work to be undertaken for the rest of the year so as to achieve the annual economic goals and concretely promote high-quality development.

Presiding over the second plenary meeting of the State Council, the cabinet, Li said that the government will fully implement the policy decisions and arrangements of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, seek progress while maintaining stability, accurately and forcefully implement macro-control measures, and harness the synergy between various policies.

During the meeting, Li emphasized the importance of expanding domestic demand by further tapping into the potential of consumption and pro-investment polices, promoting the consumption of big-ticket items, and mobilizing private investment.

Efforts should be made to build a modern industrial system, accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries with new technologies and business models, vigorously promote the development of emerging strategic industries, and comprehensively accelerate the pace of manufacturing-sector digitization, Li said.

According to the premier, efforts will be made to deepen reforms and further opening-up, implement a new round of reforms of state-owned enterprises, improve the development environment for private enterprises, stabilize the scale and optimize the structure of foreign trade, and better attract and utilize foreign capital.

Li stressed the need to promote the coordinated development of urban and rural areas by deeply implementing the new-type urbanization and rural revitalization strategies and consolidating poverty alleviation achievements.

He said efforts would be made to prevent and defuse severe risks by substantively removing these risks in primary areas.

Efforts should also be made to ensure and improve people's lives by strengthening social assistance for the needy population groups and creating more employment channels.

The premier also stressed work in preventing and reducing disasters and supervising production safety. He said efforts will be made to promote post-disaster recovery, conduct in-depth investigations into and rectify the hidden dangers in production, and ensure the safety of people's lives and property.

(Cover: Chinese Premier Li Qiang presides over the second plenary meeting of the State Council in Beijing, China, August 16, 2023. /Xinhua)