President Xi emphasized that the relationship between economic development and environment protection should be coordinated, adding that the country would never pursue short-term economic growth at the expense of environmental degradation.

The annual report from the Ministry of Environmental Protection revealed that last year, well over half the groundwater in 198 cities was "bad" or "extremely bad", more than 30 percent of major rivers were "polluted" or "seriously polluted" and just 27 of 113 key cities had air of acceptable quality.

Wu Jinglian, one of China's most influential economists, said China's ecological system faces a serious challenge. China has seen success in economic growth since late last century; however, a sustained downside trend remained in the environment. Our basic living condition – soil, water and air – was threatened. Wu said although the government has paid attention to environment issue in the long term, the environment is still deteriorating, partly due to the pattern of economic growth.

If the pattern isn't changed, it's difficult to solve the resources shortage and environmental degradation. Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows China consumes 21.3 percent of the world's energy, while it generates 11.6 percent of the world's GDP. The growth pattern brings not only high consumption of resources, but also environmental degradation.

Implementing the strictest plan and regulation can provide guarantees for the construction of an ecological civilization, Xi said. First and foremost, we should improve the assessment system of economic and social development, and list indicators that reflect the condition of an ecological civilization, such as resources consumption, environmental degradation and ecological benefit, into the assessment system.