President Xi Jinping said China must strive to make breakthroughs on coordinated development between urban and rural areas to enable farmers to participate in the country's development on an equal footing and share the fruits of economic growth.
The president was speaking during a collective study session of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee's Political Bureau on improving mechanisms and institutions for integrated development of urban and rural areas on Thursday afternoon.
The most difficult task for China in building a a moderately prosperous society in all respects lies in its vast rural areas, Xi said.
He urged beefing up efforts and investment to strive for "significant breakthroughs" in integrating development in urban and rural areas.
In recent years, China's rural areas have seen substantial improvements, with agriculture strengthened and social welfare and services improved. Significant progress has been made in adjusting and coordinating the relationship between urban and rural development, Xi said.
However, the problem of unbalanced development is still serious, Xi said.
Development of rural areas should be supported by more advanced urban areas. The target is to gradually let rural residents have equal basic rights and interests and the same public services as urban residents, balancing the income of rural and urban residents, optimizing the distribution of essential factors in urban and rural areas and integrating urban and rural industrial development, according to Xi.
China has the material and technical conditions to promote integrated urban and rural development, Xi said, and now is the time to let industry nurture agriculture and allow cities to contribute back to villages.
Rural development must fundamentally depend on peasants themselves, Xi said, noting reform and innovation should be promoted to boost farmers' initiatives and energy.
Xi urged advancing agricultural modernization, strengthening the position of agriculture, and ensuring food security and income growth.
Infrastructure and public service facilities in rural areas need to be improved, Xi said, and capital of the society should be encouraged to invest in these projects.
Social care for the left-behind rural population -- mostly children, women and the elderly whose fathers, husbands and sons have left for better-paying jobs in cities -- needs to be improved, Xi stressed.
Reform of the household registration system should be accelerated to ensure rural workers have the same job opportunities as urban workers and to let rural migrants settle down in cities, Xi said.
Governments at all levels should fully understand the importance and urgency of improving institutions and mechanisms for promoting the integration of urban and rural development, Xi said. Specific policies and effective measures should be rolled out to make progress on realizing integrated urban and rural development.
According to government data, the rural population of the Chinese mainland stood at 618.7 million by the end of 2014, accounting for 45.2 percent of the mainland's total population.
As one of China's most prominent development targets, the country aims to build "a moderately prosperous society in all respects" by 2020, but the gap between rural and urban populations remains large, especially between the poorest and most remote areas and booming megacities.
