Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, joined a deliberation with deputies from the delegation of Jiangsu province at the first session of the 14th National People's Congress on March 5.

Eying on high-quality development, the top priority in building China into a modern socialist country in all respects, Xi stressed that China must fully and faithfully apply the new development philosophy on all fronts and a better balance must be maintained between effective rise in quality and reasonable growth in quantity.

Deputies must stay committed to deepening reform and opening up, further transform the growth model, and must take meeting the people's expectation for a better life as the ultimate goal.

Deputy Wei Qiao from an agricultural machinery cooperative in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, is a "new farmer" in the new era. After learning that the woman has grown more than 20,000 mu (1,333 hectares) of rice, Xi commended her efforts, saying it mirrored the efficiency of large-scale agriculture, which enables the application of agricultural machineries and modern agricultural approaches.

Shan Zenghai, a deputy from Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group Co., Ltd., a Chinese multinational state-owned heavy machinery manufacturing company based in Jiangsu's Xuzhou, sat opposite Xi during the deliberation.

The company's endeavors in sci-tech innovation over the recent years have left a deep impression on the Chinese President.

After listening to Shan's report on the company's performance, Xi said China has complete manufacturing categories and needs to move the sector towards higher ends. This is the essence of high-quality development and the manufacturing industry is always indispensable to China's development, he added.

He noted that China must have control over its own food supply and build strong the manufacturing sector. A major country with more than 1.4 billion people must rely on itself in terms of food security and manufacturing development, as "one-trick pony" doesn't work well in the international market, Xi said.

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has had a science-based grasp of the trend of China's development, pursued high-quality development as the general aim, advanced supply-side structural reform as the main task, comprehensively implemented the new development philosophy, and created a new pattern of development, so as to make development more balanced, coordinated and inclusive, and strive to realize development with a higher level of quality, efficiency, equity, sustainability and security.

The 20th National Congress of the CPC has made plans on the goals and policies in the cause of the Party and the country for some time to come, as well as major deployment on accelerating the building of a new pattern of development and promoting high-quality development.

The "four-must" remarks by Xi this time is a profound summary of China's high-quality development in the new era and mirrors the CPC's deepened understanding of the law of economic and social development, charting the course and serving as an important guide for promoting high-quality development as China embraces a new journey of building a modern socialist country.

High-quality development concerns the overall situation of the country's socialist modernization drive.

China will move faster to realize sci-tech self-reliance and self-strengthening at higher levels, a route that it must take to promote high-quality development, to open up new areas and new arenas in development and foster new driving force and new strengths.

Giving high priority to fostering a new pattern of development, which helps promote high-quality development, the country should make sure that its implementation of the strategy to expand domestic demand is integrated with its efforts to deepen supply-side structural reform, and continue to focus on development of the real economy.

China must adhere to the philosophy that strong agriculture is the foundation of a strong modern socialist country and promoting agricultural modernization is a prerequisite for achieving high-quality development. It should secure the stable and safe supply of grain and important agricultural products, take industrial development as the top priority of rural revitalization and speed up the building of a beautiful and harmonious countryside that is desirable to live and work in.

The country should focus on the ultimate goal of meeting the people's expectation for a better life, improve the governance system for urban and rural communities, and take more measures that can improve people's livelihood and warm the cockles of their hearts, in a bid to promote common prosperity and achieve a high quality of life.