President Hu Jintao Tuesday asked local officials to help farmer Zha Lanming to build up family fortunes and improve living standards when he visited Zha's home in a village in Xingyi City of Guizhou Province, southwest China, on the eve of the Spring Festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year.
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Hu, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the Central Military Commission, also went to the home of farmer Qin Jixing in Nahui Village and worked with the family to prepare special food for the festival.
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The village is one of the destinations of the president's tour to Qianxinan Bouyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture which began on Monday. Xingyi is the capital city of the prefecture where Hu went on several occasions to instruct the local officials in their efforts to reduce poverty.
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Hu, who worked as secretary of the CPC Guizhou provincial committee between 1985 and 1988, was welcomed by the local people who were dancing and singing to festive tunes. His tour Tuesday also brought him to an animal husbandry company and a farm product processing company.
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On Monday, Hu visited the representatives of model workers and minority people in Xingyi City. He extended his New Year's greetings to them and urged Party and government officials to give full play to the role of model workers to cultivate a social atmosphere for all to learn from them.
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While talking with the representatives of ethnic minority groups, the president said that China is a socialist country with many different ethnic groups and each of them is a member of the big family of the Chinese nation. "All the ethnic groups have made important contributions to the creation of the brilliant Chinese civilization and the promotion of China's development and progress," he said.
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Hu called on the people of all ethnic groups to respect, learn and help each other and unite as one for realizing the goal of building a relatively affluent society in an all-round way.
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Listening to the report on local economic and social development, the president spoke highly of the great changes that had taken place in towns and villages of the remote mountainous prefecture. He encouraged the local officials and people to seize the good opportunity brought about by the strategy of development western China to promote the reform, opening up and modernization drive in the locality.

(Xinhua News Agency February 9, 2005)