Chinese vice premier calls for enhanced quality, effectiveness of foreign trade

CHANGSHA, Nov. 20 -- Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng has called for sustained efforts to enhance both the quality and effectiveness of foreign trade, emphasizing the need to remove bottlenecks and obstacles hindering the development of a unified national market.

He, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during an inspection tour of the provinces of Hubei and Hunan from Tuesday to Thursday.

Having inspected cities including Ezhou and Xianning in Hubei and Changsha in Hunan, He called for greater support for the development of new business forms and models, including cross-border e-commerce, as well as for the construction of overseas warehouses.

He also highlighted the need to diversify foreign trade markets to sustain the development of China's foreign trade sector.

He underscored the necessity of advancing multimodal transportation, of accelerating the development of a modern logistics system, and of reducing logistics costs across the society.

The vice premier highlighted the importance of adapting to the latest sci-tech revolution and industrial transformation wave, calling for efforts to achieve breakthroughs in key and core technologies, and to move faster to build industrial and supply chains that are more self-supporting and risk-controllable.

He also urged local governments to strengthen confidence and confront the difficulties of enterprises head-on, so as to ensure the successful conclusion of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and a solid start for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030).