Xi: Improve weak links in building moderately prosperous society

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Monday stressed targeted efforts to improve the weak links in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

President Xi made the remarks at the fourth meeting of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs. He is also head of the committee.

"The old, the weak, the sick, the poor, and poverty-stricken areas are obvious weak links. It is necessary to increase the intensity of work," the meeting concluded.

Premier Li Keqiang, who is also deputy head of the committee, and Wang Huning and Han Zheng, who are members of the committee, were in attendance.

Wang Yang, chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, was also present.

The meeting also reiterated that China should fine-tune monetary policy in a pre-emptive way based on economic growth and price changes.

"Monetary policy needs to be neither too tight, nor too loose and should be fine-tuned in a timely and pre-emptive way based on economic growth and changes in price situations."

The Chinese economy got off to a good start in 2019 as more indicators showed positive signs of stabilization in the first quarter of this year.

The GDP reached 21.34 trillion yuan (about 3.18 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first three months of the year, up 6.4 percent year-on-year and unchanged from the fourth quarter last year. It was 0.4 percentage point lower than the growth recorded the same period last year, indicating stable economic growth in the world's second-largest economy.

China is aiming for an economic growth of 6.0-6.5 percent in 2019 and has hence rolled out an array of economic stimulus plans to beef up domestic demand.