President Xi Jinping has urged Gansu province in Northwest China to further promote reform and innovation on the path toward modernization, with an emphasis on areas including ecological conservation, green development, rural vitalization and ethnic unity.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks during an inspection tour of Gansu province from Tuesday to Friday.

He urged Gansu to fully implement the decision and deployment of the CPC Central Committee on the national strategies of developing China's western region as well as promoting ecological conservation and high-quality development in the Yellow River basin, and carry out solid work to improve the people's well-being and the region's prosperity.

During the inspection tour, which took him to the cities of Tianshui and Lanzhou, Xi visited two cultural heritage sites, a local community, an apple orchard and a section of the Yellow River, and heard a work report by provincial officials.

He highlighted the importance of protecting cultural heritage, calling for efforts to carry forward, promote and enhance the influence of traditional Chinese culture.

Xi paid great attention to rural vitalization, calling for invigorating the development of agriculture with distinctive advantages to increase farmers' incomes.

While visiting a residential community, he emphasized the need to strengthen governance at the grassroots level, focusing on people's actual needs to improve community services.

After hearing the work report by provincial officials on Friday in Lanzhou, the provincial capital, the president urged Gansu to develop new quality productive forces tailored to local conditions.

Active efforts should be made to promote new industrialization, accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, strengthen and optimize industries with distinctive advantages, and actively develop strategic emerging industries, he said.

Xi called for cultivating a number of competitive agricultural brands in Gansu, and strengthening environmental protection to build a solid ecological barrier for the nation's western region.

He emphasized the need to deepen reform and expand opening-up with greater courage and determination. Gansu should actively integrate itself into the country's efforts to build a unified national market, he added.

While emphasizing the need to deepen the reform of State-owned assets and enterprises, Xi said that concrete measures should be taken to encourage and support the development of the nonpublic sector of the economy.

It is important to implement a people-centered strategy in promoting the new type of urbanization, strengthen the county-level economy, and promote the integrated development of urban and rural areas, he said.

Xi also urged Gansu to actively serve and align with the strategies of regional coordinated development, expand inter-regional cooperation, and deeply integrate into the high-quality construction of the Belt and Road and the development of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, a trade and logistics passage jointly built by provincial-level regions in western China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

On Thursday, Xi met with representatives of military officers stationed in Lanzhou.

On the way to Gansu on Tuesday, he visited the Baoji Bronze Ware Museum and an ecological park along the Weihe River in Baoji, Shaanxi province.