DALIAN—Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Sept 14 that China will follow the strategy of expanding domestic demand while focusing on improving demand structure to drive economic growth.

Wen made the remarks in a keynote speech at the opening of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting of "New Champions 2011" in the city of Dalian in northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Wen said domestic demand is a crucial and necessary choice for a big country to achieve sustainable economic growth. He said enormous domestic demand will be generated by upgrading consumption and raising the life quality of urban and rural population and strengthening weak links in economic and social development.

He said China will endeavor to create a favorable environment for consumption, improve consumer expectation, boost spending power and upgrade consumption structure.He said the country will also advance urbanization, protect and improve people's well-being and speed up the development of services industries during the course of consumption.

Wen said the country will make urbanization rate grow by 4 percentage points and raise the share of the value added created by services industries in gross domestic product (GDP) by 4 percentage points during the nation's 12th Five-Year Plan Period (2011-2015).

As of the end of 2010, the nation's tertiary industry accounted for 43 percent of the GDP, up from 40.5 percent in 2005. Urbanization rate stood at 47.5 percent in 2010.