Having listened carefully to the deputies, Xi made a speech. He said that, first of all, he thought well of the Report on the Work of the Government, and affirmed the achievements that Jiangsu has made over the past five years in various areas including social and economic development as well as Party building. He said he hoped that Jiangsu would continue to forge ahead with solid efforts and take the lead on the journey of high-quality development, so as to make a good start for the new chapter of Jiangsu's modernization drive featuring strong economy, prosperity for residents, beautiful environment and developed culture and ethics, and make new and greater contributions to the overall development of the country.

Xi pointed out that speeding up efforts to achieve greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology is the path we must take to promote high-quality development. Facing fierce global competitions, we must open up new areas and new tracks in development and foster new growth drivers and new strengths, which, fundamentally, depends on sci-tech innovation. Whether we will be able to finish building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects as scheduled or not depends on whether we can achieve self-reliance and strength in science and technology. We must adhere to the principles of targeting global scientific and technological frontiers, serving the economy, meeting major national needs and striving to improve people's lives and health. We must accelerate the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, promote in-depth cooperation between industries, universities and research institutes, and intensify efforts to develop major platforms for sci-tech innovation. We must support top scientists to take the lead in conducting original and pioneering scientific and technological research in order to achieve breakthroughs and overcome difficulties in core technologies in key fields, so as to ensure that key areas and links can be at the mercy of our own technologies. We must strengthen the dominant position of enterprises, promote deeper integration of the innovation, industrial, capital and talent chains, give full play to the guiding and supporting role of key high-tech enterprises, and promote healthy development of micro, small and medium-sized technological enterprises. We must constantly promote the transformation and industrial application of scientific research and technological development results, so as to build a center for industrial and sci-tech innovation with global competitiveness. We need to deepen reform of science and technology system, vigorously foster a culture of innovation, and perfect the system for appraisal of science and technology and the incentive mechanism, so as to create an enabling environment for innovative personnel to stand out and give full play to their talents.

Xi pointed out that accelerating the creation of a new development pattern is the strategic foundation for promoting high-quality growth. We should make sure that our implementation of the strategy to expand domestic demand is integrated with our efforts to deepen supply-side structural reform, and move faster to modernize the industrial system. In pursuing economic growth, we must continue to focus on the real economy. We need to advance new industrialization, intensify efforts to re-engineer the industrial foundation and tackle key issues in major technologies and equipment, so as to make the manufacturing sector high-end, smarter, and greener. We should move faster to build up Jiangsu's strength in manufacturing, vigorously develop strategic emerging industries, and accelerate the development of the digital economy. We should, in accordance with the requirements of building a high-standard socialist market economy and promoting high-standard opening up, deepen reform in key areas, make coordinated efforts to put in place a modern infrastructure system and a high-standard market system, and steadily expand institutional opening up.