An article by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, on the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt was published on Aug. 31 in the 17th issue of the Qiushi Journal this year.

The article by Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, calls for efforts to facilitate the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt by promoting well-coordinated environmental conservation and avoiding excessive development.

It requires strengthened reform and innovation, strategic coordination as well as planning and guiding to transform the Yangtze River Economic Belt into a vigorous engine to boost the high-quality development of China's economy.

Related departments and regions along the Yangtze River have made achievements in strengthening top-level design, improving the ecological environment, promoting economic transformation and exploring system and mechanism reform, it says.

The article is the speech Xi delivered at a symposium on promoting the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.