The central rural work conference was held from December 28 to 29 in Beijing, capital of China. According to the statement released after the conference, the conference comprehensively analyzed the situations and tasks faced by China's rural areas, agriculture, and rural people; studied important policies that will be part of the strategy for vitalizing  the countryside; and map out the plan for the rural areas and agriculture in the coming 2018 and the next period.

Xi Jinping makes an important speech at the central rural work conference was held from December 28 to 29 in Beijing, capital of China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission,  was present and delivered a speech at the conference in which he summarized the changes to China's rural areas, agriculture, and rural people  since the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress in 2012, elaborated on the main issues for implementing the strategy of rural vitalization, and put forward specific requirements for executing the strategy.  Premier Li Keqiang also made a speech and mapped out the key tasks of implementing the strategy for vitalizing the countryside.

The conference concluded that since 2012, China has taken  solving issues related to rural areas, agriculture, and rural people as its priority, promoting innovation in rural work and making historic achievements in agricultural and rural development. And new progress has been made in supply-side structural reform of agriculture. Apart from the capacity of grain production has reached a new level and new industries in rural areas have flourished, agricultural modernization progressed steadily.

New breakthrough has been made in rural reform. Rural people's income growth rate has been faster than that of urban residents for many years, and the urban-rural basic medical care and pension systems have begun to merge. More than 80 million rural residents migrated to cities, and over 66 million people were lifted out of poverty.

The conference required that the country must follow the Party's leadership over rural work and should prioritize the development of agriculture and rural areas to accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. Rural reform should be further deepened to stimulate new energy in rural development. While green development should be insisted on to promote the sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas and to build a beautiful and livable countryside, livelihood of rural people should also be ensured and improved.

The conference pointed out that  the country should accelerate the modernization of the rural governance system and governing capacity and speed up the modernization of agriculture and rural areas.

The conference proposed taking the rural vitalization road of socialism with Chinese characteristics and required that it is a must to win the battle against targeted poverty reduction.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, and members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng also attended the conference.

Editor: Ana Wu