President Xi Jinping has called for adhering to the goal of building China into an agricultural powerhouse and trying every means to increase farmers' incomes to enable them to live a better life.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks as he extended festive greetings on Friday to farmers and people working on the agricultural and rural fronts ahead of the sixth Chinese farmers' harvest festival, which falls on Saturday.

Xi said that thanks to the efforts to overcome natural disasters, such as severe floods in certain areas of North and Northeast China, and drought in parts of Northwest China, the nation is expected to secure another bumper harvest this year.

This provides strong support for boosting the sustained recovery of the economy, accelerating the building of a new development paradigm and focusing on high-quality development, he added.

Party committees and governments at all levels must implement the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, adhere to the goal of building a strong agricultural sector and keep its fundamentals stable, Xi said.

He underlined the need to make good progress to do a good job on work concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers in the new era, comprehensively promote rural revitalization and step up agricultural and rural modernization.

Noting that increasing farmers' incomes should be a central task of work related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers, Xi urged all-out efforts to develop more approaches to increase farmers' incomes so that "their wallets will become fuller and their lives will become better".

He also emphasized the need to build a beautiful, prosperous and harmonious countryside that is desirable to live and work in.

Initiated in 2018, the Chinese farmers' harvest festival coincides with the autumnal equinox each year.

The autumnal equinox is one of the 24 solar terms in the Chinese lunar calendar and usually falls between Sept 22 and 24, during the country's agricultural harvest season.

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