News in brief: President Xi Jinping of China has called on the northeastern provinces to revive the region’s economy and ensure food security. He urged the provinces to boost industrial innovation and modernise agriculture with technology.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called on the country’s northeastern provinces to revive the former industrial heartland and breadbasket. This is in line with the Jinpingâs drive to ensure his China’s self-reliance on food production.
During a tour of the region recently, the president urged the provinces to ‘firmly grasp domestic innovation’. He also stressed that their primary role was to ensure grain supplies.
The northeast of China was one of the country’s main engines of growth, but has seen decline in recent decades and has become a ‘rust belt‘.
Jinping said that the country’s current push for modernisation and self-reliance presented new opportunities for the region. He highlighted the region’s rich resources, solid industrial foundations, favourable geographical location, and significant development potential.
The Chinese president urged the provinces to boost industrial innovation and modernise agriculture with technology. He assure that these will contribute to economic growth.
His tour of the provinces came in the wake of recent heavy rains and flooding across northern China, which experts say threatens the country’s harvests.
China has rolled out a series of measures in recent years to boost food supplies like nationwide campaigns to reclaim arable land and huge investment in supporting domestic seed breeders. The investment in the latter is made to produce better-performing crop species.
