Shao Hong, vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, led a group of non-Party members of the Committee on Proposals of the CPPCC National Committee on an inspection tour to Hunan and Hubei provinces from Sept 13 to 18. 

The purpose of the tour was to inspect the coordinated development of the city cluster in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. 

During the tour, they visited landmarks, planning exhibition halls, rivers, lakes, wetlands and cultural parks in cities such as Changsha, Yueyang and Wuhan, and held symposiums after on-site research to learn about the challenges and opportunities the cities face in coordinated development. 

Shao, also executive vice-chairman of the Jiu San Society Central Committee, pointed out that it’s an innovative step to supervise the implementation of key proposals during a thematic inspection tour, and that, during the process, non-Party CPPCC members raised their awareness, built consensus, and better performed their duties in in-depth surveys. 

He said that since the launch of the reform and opening-up, the country has made remarkable achievements through urbanization. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), China will embark on a new journey of building a modern socialist country in all respects, and promoting urban agglomeration will be one of the keys to promoting urbanization at a higher level.     

The city cluster in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River connects the east with the west and links the south to the north. It is an important part of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, a region key to the rise of the central region, and is critical to China's regional coordinated development strategy, Shao noted. 

Accelerating urban agglomeration in that part of the Yangtze River is necessary for building a new dual-circulation development paradigm, which takes the domestic market as the mainstay while letting foreign and domestic markets reinforce each other, he added. 

He urged efforts to continue transportation, information and talent integration, to gradually break down the administrative barriers to coordinated development and to promote the city cluster’s coordinated development step by step with a focus on the metropolitan areas in the region. 

During this year’s two sessions, the Jiu San Society put forward a proposal on promoting the coordinated development of Hunan and Hubei while another proposal on promoting urban agglomeration along the Yangtze River was listed as a key proposal by the CPPCC National Committee.