A senior leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) urged the party's organizations Wednesday to bring about tangible progress in party-building through the ongoing educational campaign.

"The educational campaign on maintaining the vanguard character of CPC members must produce tangible results in improving the quality of CPC members, strengthening grass-root units, serving people better and advancing work in various fields," said Zeng Qinghong, a member of the nine-member Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, during his inspection tour in southwest China's Chongqing from Sunday to Wednesday.

In addition, the campaign should lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism "to ensure party members are educated constantly over a long period of time and maintain their vanguard character," said Zeng.

The campaign is scheduled to last one and a half years beginning in January. There will be three rounds. The first round involves party organizations at or above county levels, the second round urban and township grass-root organizations and the third round organizations in rural areas.

The first round of the campaign has entered its final stage, which focuses on rectification of problems. The previous two stages focused on studying documents and identifying problems of members.

Zeng said the results of the campaign must meet the expectations of people. Ordinary people will be invited to assess results of the campaign at various party organizations.

In the final stage, party organizations shall promote rectification of identified problems with members. Meanwhile, they should work for the establishment of a permanent mechanism to promote quality of party members, maintain links with the people and promote democracy within the party.

"Maintaining the vanguard character is a fundamental and permanent task of the party," said Zeng.

Latest statistics from the Organization Department of CPC Central Committee show the 84-year-old party had 69.6 million members at the end of 2004, a rise of 1.37 million over the previous year.

Source: Xinhua