Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing has emphasized the need for deep integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation, and the comprehensive strengthening of quality management to increase high-quality supply.
Zhang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during an inspection tour in east China's Zhejiang Province from Thursday to Saturday this week.
He called for efforts to continually foster new drivers and advantages for development and provide strong support for consolidating the trend of steady economic improvement.
In the cities of Hangzhou and Yiwu, he visited enterprises in sectors including brain-computer interface technology, robotics and textiles.
Zhang stressed that enterprises are a vital force for innovation and that their leading role should be reinforced. Support should be given for enterprises to increase basic research investment, pursue frontier original innovation, and accelerate breakthroughs in core technology bottlenecks, he said.
Efforts should be made to carry forward and expand the AI Plus Initiative, driven by application scenarios, speed up the development of industry-specific models and intelligent agents, empower new industrialization via AI, continually foster new quality productive forces, and promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries to make them smarter, greener and more integrated, he added.
The vice premier also visited Yiwu International Trade City, inspecting quality and brand management and e-commerce platform regulation.
Emphasizing the principle of "quality first, winning through quality," he encouraged enterprises to establish brand cultivation systems and create premium brands through innovation, and called for cracking down on brand counterfeiting and trademark infringement in accordance with the law.
He also stressed fully leveraging the role of platform enterprises in promoting innovation, driving development, creating employment and participating in international competition, so as to increase high-quality supply of products and services.