Chinese president stresses settlement of problems people concern most

Chinese President Hu Jintao (R2) shakes hands with a poverty-stricken villager in Tu Automous County of Huzhu, northwest China's Qinghai Province, Dec. 15, 2005.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has called on the nation to boost development for the people and by the people and ensure they enjoy the fruit of development.

"We must work energetically to solve the problems that the people concern most and are related to their fundamental interests," said Hu during an inspection tour of Qinghai Province in the northwest between Tuesday and Thursday.

This is imperative to pool the strengthen of the masses to make joint efforts to build a comparatively prosperous society in an all-round way, the president said.

Accompanied by local officials, Hu visited some rural areas, enterprises and urban communities to learn how the central government policies for helping people in difficulties had been implemented.

Talking with people in poverty-stricken Dongjiagou Village, which is 2,450 meters above sea level, Hu inquired about how the preferential policies for farmers, including the exemption of agriculture tax, were carried out.

He explained to villagers in details the government policies to support agriculture and rural development, stressing that more intensive policies will be formulated for the building of a socialist new countryside.

The president visited a local primary school in Huzhu Tu Autonomous County, where the Dongjiagou Village is located. He chatted with the pupils and encouraged them to study well and prepare themselves for the construction of their hometown, the province and the country.

Chinese President Hu Jintao (R) shakes hands with a retired worker from Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu, in Xining city, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province, Dec. 15, 2005.

He asked the teachers to work hard in their "sacred post" and turn the young generation into competent people for the country and the nation.

He said he was happy to know the schoolchildren were exempted from paying tuition and textbook fees, a major state policy to push forward compulsory education.

The president also showed great concern over the life and re-employment conditions of laid-off workers in Xining City, capital of Qinghai.

After the meeting with Wang Haisheng, who was laid off from factory together with his wife, Hu asked local government officials to intensify efforts to provide more job opportunities, improve intermediary services, enhance training to help laid-off workers to be reemployed.

Hu also visited local steel, pharmaceutical, minority costume and machine tool companies and heard a report on the work of the Qinghai provincial committee of the Communist Party of China and the provincial government.

As chairman of the Central Military Commission, Hu also met with ranking officers of the People's Liberation Army stationed in the province.

Source: Xinhua