1st Ld: Respect, protect nature during development: Xi

President Xi Jinping said the protection of the ecosystem was "the most important foundation" of China's sustainable development.

Xi made the remarks during a tour of the northwestern province of Qinghai Monday through Wednesday.

He stressed that the region's ecosystem was its "biggest merit, responsibility and potential," adding that measures must be taken to ensure coordinated economic, social and environmental development.

Speaking with local officials, Xi expressed his hopes that Qinghai could make progress in becoming a pioneer of protecting the ecosystem, maintaining a circular economy and promoting ethnic solidarity.

Xi said that treating economic development as the primary objective and sustaining healthy economic growth was a major task facing the Party that needed to be delivered.

He called for full confidence and dedication in development, new concepts to guide development and efforts to address structural conflicts and problems that hinder economic development.

Supply-side structural reform should be a primary task for economic development, now and in the near future, Xi said, urging efforts to optimize production, the supply mix, products and services, and to raise the quality and efficiency of supply.

As Qinghai stands up to its obligations to protect the Sanjiangyuan region (source of three major rivers in China), or "China's water tower", Xi said, it has both an important and special role to play in ecological development.

Priority must be placed on protection, and efforts should also be made to prompt ecological recovery, supplementing the natural recovery of ecosystems, Xi said.

He ordered the coordinated implementation of projects in various areas, including: energy conservation and emissions reduction, beautiful cities and countryside, natural reserves, ecological protection around Qinghai Lake, control of desertification, and the ceding of arable land to grassland and forests. Endi