At a Beijing conference to honor model families across the nation on Monday, President Xi Jinping called for efforts to make families "an important foundation" for national development, progress and social harmony.

Calling families the "cells of society", the top leader said that the rejuvenation of the nation and the happiness of the people are embodied by the happiness of tens of thousands of families and the better life of hundreds of millions of people.

Xi said that people from all walks of life should strive for socialist family values featuring love for the nation, family and one another, devotion to progress and kindness, and mutual growth and sharing.

He pointed out that the Chinese nation has always valued the family, and traditional family virtues are a precious treasure for promotion of family harmony and an important spiritual power supporting the Chinese nation.

He said he hoped that families would value education and their own familial culture. Xi said that though family education had many aspects, the most important was character building, stressing sound moral values should be passed down to children from an early age.

He called on all Chinese families to promote fine family culture and sustain the good social ethos, and asked leading officials to take the lead in maintaining traditional family virtues.