Premier Wen Jiabao said the issues concerning agriculture and rural areas and ecological protection should be prioritized in China's large-scale development of the western regions, designed to bridge economic and social gap with the developed eastern regions.

In his written instructions on the western development drive, issued Friday on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the inauguration of the event, Wen called for accelerating development of agriculture and rural economy in the western regions centering around increasing farmer's income.

Of China's 30 million needy population, about two-thirds of those with an average annual income below 625 yuan (about 75.3 US dollars) live in western rural areas.

Wen said a series of measures should be taken, including exempting or reducing agricultural taxes, adjusting the product mix and promoting rural surplus laborers to work in towns, to fulfill the task.

"We should strive to guarantee that the poor population in western regions can dress warmly and eat their fill by 2007," he said.

Wen said that stepping up ecological protection and construction is crucial in the western development drive. Relevant projects, including returning the reclaimed land to forests and grassland, protecting natural forests and tackling the source of sandstorms and the spread of Gobi deserts, should be carried out concretely.

The western regions, which account for 70 percent of China's land and 30 percent of its population, plays a vital role in China's ecological protection. China's major rivers, including the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, are rising from these regions.

However, these regions are also the worst hit by soil erosion and desertification. Of the annual growth in desert area, more than 90 percent happens in the western regions.

In the instructions, Wen also called for continuing to strengthen the construction of infrastructure, actively developing unique and advantage industries, vigorously boosting the development of social undertakings and speeding up reform and opening up in the western regions.

Wen said the central authorities will never falter in carrying out the western development strategy, adding that it is a major long-term strategy that will run through the whole process of China's modernization drive.

"Speeding up the development of the western region would create new areas of growth for China's economy," acknowledged Wen. "It would help to improve the dynamics of the national economy and the staying power of its growth."

Despite rapid economic growth in recent years, the per capita GDP in the western regions accounts merely for 40 percent of that in the eastern areas.

The average per capita income of farmers in these regions is only half of their counterparts in the eastern areas.

"In building a well-off society in an all-round way, the emphasis and difficulty lies in the western regions, especially the western rural areas," said Wen. "There's no well-off society in an all-round way to speak of if the western regions are left behind. We cannot say China has accomplished modernization if the western regions are not modernized."

The Chinese government has issued a range of supportive measures to boost development of the western regions, including increasing capital input and granting preferential policies. As a result, these regions have recorded accelerated economic growth and ecological construction.

The western development strategy covers 12 localities, including Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai provinces, Chongqing Municipality, and the five autonomous regions of Tibet, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Guangxi.